A Duel for All the World
by MusedMoose
Summary: Part 3 of the DreamThorn Trilogy. Crossover with Neil Gaiman's "Sandman." A year after the events of "By the Rose", Kara and Marie return to Ohtori to find that one final duel awaits all who wear the rose ring. Contains fem-slash.
1. Prologue: Nightmare Overture

**Author's Note:** welcome to the final part of the Dreamthorn Trilogy, a crossover between Revolutionary Girl Utena and Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman" graphic novel series. If this is the first you've seen of it, the first two parts, "Objects of Desire" and "By the Rose" can be found in my profile. Thank you for reading.

* * *

A Duel for All the World: Prologue – Nightmare Overture

Ohtori Academy lay open to those who looked down from the tower.

Miki stood at a window on the tower's highest story, the morning light casting his shadow behind him across the red stone floors. He held his stopwatch in one hand, and watched the students pass far, far below. A small table with a notebook atop it stood next to him. A frown creased his otherwise youthful face.

_Click._

He made a single note, then clicked his stopwatch again. So many variables to track, but the pattern showed itself clearly now.

_Click._

He wrote faster, his hand steady and making no mistakes. A moment later, he let his watch drop, then checked his notes from the past seven pages. He let out a quiet sigh, and closed the notebook. Just as he'd thought. Worse than he'd hoped.

The sound of two sets of footsteps came from behind him. Miki didn't turn to look. Only two people would care – wait. He listened again, heard a third set of steps, then glanced over his shoulder. "Good morning," he said, formal and awkward.

Ever since they'd all come to live up here, nearly everything had been formal and awkward. For most of them.

"Miki," Juri said with a nod. Behind her, Nanami and Tsuwabuki stopped and greeted him as well. "How bad is it?" she asked.

Miki flipped his notebook back open and held it out to her. "Just as I thought, Juri," he said. "It's the same thing over and over now." He turned back to the window, picked up his stopwatch again and clicked it, only half-conscious of the action.

"The same people pass by the same places, every day. It used to be every month, then every week, and now, everything's been the same every day this week. I wonder if they're having the same conversations every day." He paused, then said quietly, "I wonder if they'd realize it."

Juri stepped up next to him, her blue eyes on his notes. "You're certain of this?" she asked. She looked down the chart he'd made, noting significant things and the times they occurred. When she reached the end, she flipped the page, and found a chart filled in for the past six days.

"So," Juri said, "in a few seconds, these two people should bump into each other." She tapped a row with her thumb.

Miki held up his watch. "Three . . . two . . . one."

Down at the academy's front gates, two boys in uniforms smacked into each other, as one had been staring at a girl not far ahead of him. They exchanged a few words, then laughed it off and went on their ways.

"Do you think," Nanami began, "it'll start to repeat faster now?" Juri and Miki both turned to look at her. Concern and fear mingled in her expression, though her voice held steady. "I remember that – I remember when I started having a conversation that I'd had a month before, the same thing word for word." She stepped past them, and leaned her forehead against the window. "It shouldn't happen to us here, should it?"

Juri and Miki glanced at each other, not needing to say a word. Nanami was still sure that this place would protect them. She, out of all of them, might know. How sure anyone else was, that was open for debate.

Months ago, the student council convened to discuss something they'd all noticed – life on campus was starting to repeat itself. They'd all had conversations that they'd had before, and while they'd realized it, the people they'd spoken to had seemed completely oblivious. They'd come to no conclusion that day, but agreed to watch for others who might have realized it was happening.

In time, they'd gathered not only all the council members, but several others – Nanami and Tsuwabuki, as well as Miki's sister Kozue, Nanami's friend Keiko, and Shiori, someone Juri knew but apparently didn't wish to speak of.

The small group had discussed the strange happenings and tried to figure out what could be causing them. When Juri brought up that they hadn't received any letters from Ends of the World for some time, Nanami had suggested seeing if he was in the tower.

Miki still remembered the looks that the others gave her that day. He'd done the same, wondering how Nanami could have known who Ends of the World was and where he lived. It seemed impossible – they'd only received letters, and none of them had suggested that Ends of the World could be nearby, let alone on campus. Nanami claimed she didn't know how she knew, only that she'd remembered something.

Not something, Miki thought. Someplace. A place at the top of the tower at the center of campus, several stories above where the council held its meetings. An apartment of many floors, with giant rooms and tall windows, and a planetarium projector in the center of the topmost floor. It sounded like something from a dream. But with nothing better to go on, they'd followed her suggestion.

When they entered the elevator, they found that there were buttons that hadn't been there before. The button for the highest floor took them to the room Nanami had told them of, the red-floored chamber. And not long after that, they'd found that they were not the only ones in this place.

Kanae, a young woman who claimed she was engaged to a man named Akio who was to be the next chairman, said she'd been living there for nearly a week. She didn't know why. She didn't know where the chairman was. She didn't know why she'd come there. But she'd been cooking for quite some time, and was so happy to have people to share the place with, it was so big and she was so lonely sometimes. . . .

Miki took a deep breath, drawing himself out of his memories. In time, he and the rest of the council had come to realize many things. Not only had they received letters from Ends of the World before, long before, they'd played their way through the dueling game many, many times. Each time, the prize was a young woman with purple hair. Each time, one of them would fight the others and triumph over them all. Each time, the victor was known as the one engaged to the Rose Bride.

And each time, none of them recalled what happened once the game was over. But they remembered the game starting again, and again, and again. Some of them had tried to count the time, to see how many years it amounted to. None of them had ever finished counting, for reasons they didn't speak of.

"They're as bad as we are," Juri murmured, looking out the window again. Nanami's assurance of their safety hung in the air between them, a doubtful promise. "And they won't even know."

Miki shook his head. "They're not like us, Juri. We found out. And we know what's happened to us."

"We don't know!" Nanami stepped up and shoved her way between Juri and Miki, glaring at them each in turn. Behind her, Tsuwabuki protested, but she ignored him. "How can you say we know, when we haven't learned a thing?"

"But we have learned, Miss Nanami," Tsuwabuki protested. He took a step forward, then hesitated. "We know this is where Ends of the World was, and we haven't started to forget. That's something, isn't it?"

"Something, perhaps." Juri gave both Nanami and Tsuwabuki an even look. "But there's no guarantee that the same won't happen to us. Even with all that we've remembered, we could still forget."

Juri didn't show it, but Miki could guess her meaning. All that they'd remembered. . . .

It seemed that the duel game's nature was to bring chaos and upheaval into their lives. Miki remembered a driving need to win, an overwhelming desire to be the victor that trumped every other emotion he'd ever had. During one game, he'd sabotaged Saionji's sword to make hm lose, and nearly crippled Touga. And yet . . . in the next game, somehow, he'd been so weak that a minor injury from his first and only duel kept him in the school's infirmary for nearly a week.

Who was Ends of the World, to have done all this to them? And why had he enjoyed . . . playing with them so much? Try as he might, Miki couldn't think of any other way to explain it.

"You could forget," Nanami said, bitterness in her voice. She crossed her arms over her chest. "I won't. My brother--" She shook her head, once, and needed say nothing more.

Miki nodded, and gave her a sympathetic look. Some of the things he remembered about, and with, Kozue still made him uncomfortable at the very least.

As though on cue, Touga strolled into the chamber. He wore his council uniform still, the shirt half-unbuttoned to expose his chest. Some things would not change, it seemed; of all of them, Touga seemed the least worried about their situation, and if anything he'd remembered disturbed him at all, he didn't show it. Behind him, Keiko stood in the room's doorway, waiting there as though she had to be invited in. Her eyes never left Touga.

"Good morning," Touga said, his voice deep and mellow, sounding like he'd only just risen from sleep. "Has staring out the window taught you anything?"

Miki turned and stood up straight. In nearly all his memories, Touga was head of the student council, and the habit of treating him as the one in charge had proven hard to break. "The same thing's happening every day now, Touga. It's been the same for a week."

"Not that you seem to care," Nanami snapped.

"Such harsh words," Touga said, giving her a lazy smile. "Don't blame me for your memories. It was what you wanted--"

"Enough, Touga," Juri said, her voice sharp. Miki knew that look in her eyes; he'd seen it every time the two of them were in the same room ever since they'd come here. In a quiet moment, Juri had confided in him – during one game, Juri had borne an unrequited love for Touga, and it seemed she couldn't forgive that. Whether she hadn't forgiven Touga or herself, Miki didn't know. "None of us wanted what we did. We were being toyed with."

"You say that," Touga said with a casual shrug, "but I don't seem to remember many protests. From any of you."

Miki tuned out their argument; Touga often argued with Juri and Nanami both. He seemed to enjoy baiting them. Now that Miki considered it, Touga seemed to enjoy baiting everyone, though Saionji had been his favorite target lately. Saionji had just short of imprisoned himself in one of the lower floors of the tower; only Kanae saw him when she went down to bring him tea and food.

Of everyone, Touga seemed to have spared only Kozue. Miki decided he didn't want to know why.

Something Nanami said brought Miki's attention back to them. "And we can't leave! There's no way out! You know that!"

Miki nodded. It was true. Just over a week ago, he and Juri had discovered something bizarre and worrisome on the edges of campus. Campus itself was falling apart, breaking around the edges, with only a strange, purple-fringed darkness filled with stars on the other side.

What this meant, Miki couldn't guess. But staying in the tower seemed like a reasonable option for now.

"Perhaps you can't," Touga said, then turned and walked away, wrapping an arm around Keiko's waist when he reached the door.

Miki looked to Juri as Nanami fumed silently. They shared another glance, then looked back out across campus. He didn't bother checking his watch or his notes. He'd been watching for months. He knew the patterns wouldn't change. The people wouldn't change.

Nothing would.

"You remember her, don't you," Juri said.

Miki nodded. "I wish I knew where she was. Maybe she'd be able to figure out what's going on."

Juri shook her head, and a small, sad smile reached her lips. "I don't think so. She wasn't the type to figure things out. She was . . . she would do something about this, about all of this."

"I hope so," Miki said. They didn't need to say the girl's name; they both knew it. The only one who'd worn a rose ring who wasn't here, the one they'd all forgotten about once she fought the final duel. The only one they'd all fought and, in time, they all lost to her. Even Nanami had joined that game, and judging by the others' memories, even those who hadn't been on the council had played a role.

Even Kanae, it seemed, though it was hard to get her to talk about much of anything.

"Utena Tenjou," Miki whispered, as though speaking her name could somehow change things.

"Where are you?"

* * *

A world and more away, Desire floated within the heart of a great monolith in the shape of itself, and knew all that transpired at Ohtori. Desire saw its creation, a world without a ruler, doomed to repeat itself until it fell apart, all those within it gone forever.

And Desire knew what had transpired, and Desire considered the consequences, and Desire realized what could come of this. And Desire grew intrigued.


	2. Chapter 1: A Little Dream of We

A Duel for All the World: Chapter One – A Little Dream of We

More than a year later, Kara still remembered the car.

She lay awake in bed, staring up at the ceiling, her long pink bangs spread out across the pillow to either side. Next to her, curled up against her, Marie slept quietly. Kara tried not to envy her; she'd never known Marie to have trouble falling asleep, as long as they were together.

Kara, on the other hand . . . nights like this made it easy to remember, with a hot wind blowing in through the window and the monotonous click of the fan overhead and cars on the street outside casting their light into her room every time one drove past.

Lights passing by, darkness in between. Far, far too many memories.

Sometimes she tried to believe that it had never happened. Her friends at school, the rest of the anime club, had either forgotten everything or had never known. Kara had given it some thought, and figured it was better that way. Not everyone got to live in something out of an anime series.

Good thing too, she thought, considering all that had happened.

Not that everything was bad. Kara shifted slightly, sliding a bit closer to Marie despite the night's warmth. The other girl, her long, wavy brown hair bound back in a single braid that trailed toward the bed's edge, stirred in her sleep. Sometimes, Marie whimpered as she slept, and then Kara would hold her closer, until she grew quiet again. Marie never said what she dreamed of on those nights; Kara never asked.

Sometimes, it was easier not to know.

But after all that had happened, at least they were together. Not Utena and not quite Anthy, not anymore; Kara remembered Marie's words to her the day after that strange final duel and after their trip through something that might have been Ohtori.

"_I am no longer the Rose Bride."_

And from that day forth, nothing else had happened. No more letters, no more duels, not a single sign of the infamous car appearing from nowhere. Kara had even gone to check Banner Hall, on a day when she'd had some time alone. The chain was securely locked, and showed no sign of falling off at someone's approach. She wasn't sure what she would have done otherwise.

But that wasn't important now. All that really mattered was getting through the next few days without anything bad happening. They'd made it through their last set of finals, somehow, and would graduate in a few days. Then they could leave high school behind and move on, to new places and new people who'd never think that something like this could happen.

Would she even be able to relate?

The thought startled Kara, and she frowned. No matter where they went to college, she and Marie would seem like any other couple, for the most part. No one else they met would believe how they'd come to be together. Kara put a hand to her forehead and muttered. Maybe it was better that way.

"Can't you sleep?"

Kara looked over. Marie's green eyes, open wide, almost glowed in the faint light from outside. For an instant, Kara remembered the picture she'd once seen, of a younger Marie with dark brown eyes. Something had happened. But after the final duel, they'd never talked about it. Probably better that way.

Kara brushed the thought away and gave Marie half a smile. "Yeah. It's too damn hot."

Marie made no move to pull away. "So it is." She paused. "What do you think we should do about that, Katherine?"

"I dunno," Kara said. Another of Marie's awkward questions; she'd grown used to them. "And don't ask, I don't want you to move, or get your own bed, or anything like that."

The look Marie gave her showed everything – not only did Marie know, but she wouldn't have suggested it. "As you say," she said. "What aren't you saying?"

"I was . . . just thinking." Kara folded her hands behind her head, tugging idly at her short black hair. "We're almost done here, yeah? So when we head off to college, it's not like anyone's gonna know what we've been through."

"And?" Marie asked.

Kara frowned at her, then snorted. "What d'you mean, 'and'?"

"Just that." Marie leaned up on one elbow. Despite the heat, she still wore a nightgown to sleep, though her summer one was thin and had no sleeves. "Who would you want to know? Who would believe us?"

"Nobody," Kara said with a shrug. "It's like, we had all this happen to us. I know it's not always easy for two girls together, but we've--" She stopped as Marie reached out and put a finger to her lips.

"You worry too much," Marie whispered. She sat up, folding her legs beneath her. "Kara. What's past is past, and I don't know why you'd want to go back to that. I think we had enough the first time."

"Yeah, I guess." Kara sat up, then leaned forward to stretch her back. "Maybe I'm just nervous about graduation and all that. It's gonna be weird, seeing everyone leaving."

"I'm sure we'll see some of them again. Very few things end forever."

Kara chuckled at her. "You sound like an old woman or some kind of Zen master, you know that?" She laughed as Marie bowed her head and clapped her hands before herself. "Very funny."

"Thank you." Marie pulled her braid around her shoulder, and ran her hand down its length. "It should be cooler downstairs. We could sleep there." She slid off the bed and held out her hand.

Kara rose, and they took each others' hands out of habit as they walked out of the bedroom, down the hall, down the stairs, past the living room, toward the foyer, and out the front door. Kara froze as the door shut behind them.

"The hell?" She looked at Marie, and tightened her grip on the other girl's hand. "Why'd you bring me outside?"

"I was following you," Marie said, her eyes flicking back and forth. "I think."

Kara turned. The front door was gone and had taken the rest of the house with it. She and Marie stood in a rectangular courtyard surrounded by a building. Four large squares of grass took up most of the yard, and the white-walled building rose around them, several stories high. Scalloped arches covered open hallways leading away from the building.

"I better be dreaming this," Kara whispered. She glanced at Marie, then froze, clenching the other girl's hand tight. "Marie!"

Marie froze. "Kara?"

"Your hair's purple again!" Kara spat.

Marie reached back and pulled her braid around, then let it drop as her hand froze. Kara stepped back to her and pulled her close, holding her tight. Marie began to shake. "No," she whispered. "No. We're done. It's over. No."

Kara raised her head and looked around. She recognized the courtyard now. It'd been almost a year since she and Marie had re-watched Utena; she still wasn't sure why Marie had wanted to. Something about overcoming the past, Kara had guessed at the time. But this yard looked like the one from the end of the series, where Utena, Miki, and Juri had played an odd game of badminton that somehow summed up all that had come before and prepared everyone for the inevitable ending.

This would not be her ending. Not Marie's either. Kara ran her hand down Marie's braid, and tugged the hairband out of the end.

Marie looked up at her, faint confusion in her eyes. "Katherine? What--"

Kara tied back her own hair. She'd grown it longer over the past year or so, and now wore most of it in a short ponytail. Her bangs she'd grown even longer, and had kept dying them pink; they now reached past her shoulders.

Once her hair was out of her face, Kara took Marie's hand again, and gave her a hard look. "Something's seriously wrong here," she said. "Let's find out what. C'mon." She led Marie out of the courtyard.

They passed through one of the arches and found themselves on Ohtori's campus. Stars gleamed down from the pure black sky, and the familiar tower rose from the center of everything, looming over them both, a reminder of all that had happened. A few steps later, Marie stopped, and looked up at no one.

"Oh," Marie said, and smiled. "Hello. It's been so long."

"Marie?" Kara looked back and forth, suddenly wary. "Who're you talking to?"

Marie laughed and bowed her head for a moment, as though nodding to someone important. "You look different, my lord."

Kara froze. Who would Marie call that? "Marie--"

The stars above glimmered. Marie turned and looked at Kara, and gave her a quiet, knowing smile. "I'm sorry, Katherine," she said, a new and strange kind of serenity clear on her face. "But I have to go."

And Marie disappeared.

"Marie!" Kara yelled. No one answered. "Marie!"

The world shifted around her, and a path appeared in the white ground, shining black stones studded with stars to either side. Kara whipped her gaze back and forth, looking for someone, anyone, to tell her what was going on.

This had to be a dream. A dream. It was too hot, she was dreaming all weird, that was the answer, it had to be – no. This. . . .

Kara stared at the stones, at the long white path before her and the black rocks to either side. A shiver ran up her spine and settled in her skull. Something seemed familiar about this, something in the depths of her mind told her she'd known a path like this before. The feeling fled as soon as she understood it, leaving her without answers.

She took a deep breath, then turned and looked toward the tower. "If I have to come up there and kick your ass again," she said, "you know I will. You're not getting her back."

"_He isn't. Follow."_

Marie's voice. Kara turned around again, and again saw no one. That was . . . something. If Akio was behind this, and they hadn't killed him with the motorcycle back then, then at least he didn't have Marie. Unless he'd made her say that.

Kara gritted her teeth and stepped onto the path, took one step, then another. The sensation of having done this before swept through her again, fleeting and true, and for a blink she felt a presence on her shoulder, as though something or someone rested there. This had to be a dream; how else could it feel so familiar?

The path led her toward Ohtori's tall, intricate gates, toward the arch and the iron roses, and when Kara reached the end, she saw that Ohtori ended as well. Nothing lay beyond the gate but the dark, calm void of empty space, small stars twinkling somewhere in the distance. She stared out into the abyss, and listened again.

Nothing.

"How am I supposed to follow," Kara said, "if there's nowhere to go?"

She looked down at the edge of Ohtori, to where the white path reached the blackness, and saw that the path did somehow continue. The stars outlined the path's continuance, a rising ramp that spiraled into the darkness above. Kara placed one foot upon it, tentative, then another when it held her.

Kara walked into the stars, and the stars sloped upward in long curves, and she climbed above Ohtori. The campus lay surrounded by stars and darkness, an island in the nothingness, as though it was all that was and all that could ever be. Kara paused, peering down at the place. It seemed empty.

She climbed higher, until Ohtori had grown so small, she could have stepped upon it, or put it between her hands and crushed it. She smiled at the thought. Perhaps that would end its influence, perhaps that would make it so neither she nor Marie would have to worry about ever coming back. Again.

If this was a dream, she thought, then perhaps it would work just like that. She reached out, intending to crush Ohtori between her palms. Childish, perhaps, but she might never have this sort of dream again.

The tower at the center of campus pierced her palm, and Kara yelped, then pulled her hands back. A small hole in her skin began to bleed, then as she watched, the blood reversed itself and returned to the wound, as though trying to heal itself. A moment later, Kara's own skin began to pull itself into the wound, and her hand cramped as it imploded into itself.

Kara scarcely had time to scream as the rest of her followed. The sharpest pain, and then–

She found herself floating in a red space, sparse landscape spreading out below her, all around her. The only feature in the bleakness was shaped like a human, an enormous pale statue of a being both male and female, standing there exulting in itself, its heart laid bare to the world.

The shiver of old memories swept through Kara again, and she found herself floating closer, closer, until the statue's true size showed itself, and Kara neared its perfectly sculpted face. The eyes opened, windows to the statue's inside, and in one, Marie stood there watching.

"Marie!" Kara yelled again. When Marie's quiet, knowing expression didn't change, Kara tried for the obvious. "I'm dreaming this, huh?"

"Aren't you?" Marie asked. "You don't know?"

Kara, hanging in midair, slumped. "You picked a really bad time to get all obscure on me, y'know," she said. "Yes, I'm dreaming. I'm pretty damn sure I'm dreaming. You really think this would happen if I wasn't?"

"And because you're dreaming," Marie asked, "you think this isn't real?"

Kara almost yelled, almost screamed that Marie's grasp on reality had completely left her, almost cried out for this all to end so she could wake up and forget about it as soon as possible. But something in Marie's green eyes caught her. "How would you know," she said slowly, "if a dream's gone real?"

"There are ways to know." Marie still smiled. "But it's more important that you remember. Do you know?"

Kara frowned. "Know what?"

"All that you left behind." A mark appeared on Marie's forehead, a red circle with an elongated teardrop shape below it. "I know you know why you left it behind."

"No," Kara gasped. "No. Marie. Come on, you're not her, you don't have to do this! Let me wake up!" She stretched her hand out toward Marie, who didn't move.

"Are you certain?" Marie asked.

The great statue's eyes closed, and when they opened, Marie was gone. A pair of yellow eyes, pupils slitted catlike, started back at Kara. The statue . . . smiled, a leer suggesting all manner of lust and lasciviousness and pure, unbridled want.

"I remember you," the statue said with a voice all at once a caress and a scratch upon Kara's nerves. "And you'll be mine. One way or another."

Something in Kara's mind and memory tugged upon her, forced her to turn and run, and she floated away, neither knowing nor caring how she moved or what else awaited her in this strange red land. The statue's laugh came from behind her, devilishly enticing, and a breath later, enormous pale fingers closed around Kara, snatching her from the air.

"You always run," the voice said. "Why won't you stay and play?"

Kara screamed, and–

And she walked through the gates of Ohtori, sun shining brightly overhead, her steps calm and measured in her black shoes and red socks and the boys' uniform that curiously didn't quite match what even the boys wore here, and she heard the cries ahead, students calling her name but no that wasn't her name.

"Utena!"

"Utena!"

"Utena-a-a!"

Kara forced herself to stop as she realized what was happening and where she stood. She glanced down and recognized the uniform; Utena's, of course. But her skin was her own, as was her hair. It was as though she'd been dropped onto the set of a live-action version of the series, playing the lead.

"She wants me to remember," she muttered to herself. "How many times do I have to tell people . . . I'm not her."

She continued walking as though compelled, ignoring the adoring cries around her. And Kara came to realize, the only one she had to tell she wasn't Utena now . . . was Marie. The rest of the anime club knew nothing of what had happened. She hadn't even been able to convince them to watch the series, they said that it was too long.

So no one even knew why she dyed her hair pink, why she and Marie were together. Only Marie. The only one she'd ever wanted to play the prince for.

And as Kara walked along Ohtori's ways, she came to a long walkway, pillars standing on both sides, the stone underfoot polished to a glossy shine. She glanced down at her reflection and saw a girl who was not her looking back.

Kara gasped and leaped away, then peered again. Utena stared back at her, as though she was real; blue eyes and lighter skin and long pink hair and the uniform she wore to the duels, epaulets and everything. Kara collapsed to her knees, started at the reflection that was not her own, even recognized the traumatized expression. She wiped at the stone, clawed at it, anything to make the image go away.

"Why, Katherine?"

Marie's voice again, and her image to go along with it, reflected in the stone next to the girl who wasn't Kara. Kara glanced behind herself. No one was there. She turned back to Marie and, fighting back tears, begged her.

"Tell me what's going on! Please!"

"What do you see, Kara?" When Kara said nothing, Marie put her hand on the reflection's shoulder. Kara felt nothing. "Please . . . tell me."

"I see . . . Utena," Kara managed, then coughed. She swallowed hard. "I see Utena. I'm wearing her clothes. But she's not me!" She took another breath, and shouted, "She's not!"

All around her, the students stopped and stared. Kara looked. They stood in a perfect circle around her, some looking over their shoulders and others leaning forward, all curious. They all blinked in unison, and when they opened their eyes again, starry blackness filled the space where their eyes had once been.

All at once, they said, "Remember," and then were gone.

Kara screamed and pounded on the stone, and when she looked at the reflection again, she saw that the Utena there had stopped mirroring her movements, but only looked at her with a quiet sympathy. Kara pressed her forehead to the stone.

"I don't remember anything," she said. "I don't remember what you want me to! What's it going to take?"

Kara lay there for a moment; she knew not how long. She felt tears drip down her face, felt them pool between the stone and her cheek. She remembered the last time she'd cried, when Doug was in the hospital, and knew that Marie had been with her then, at the worst of times.

"When things are wrong at Ohtori," Marie said, her voice close to Kara's ear and little more than a whisper, "you know who causes them, and you know where to go."

Kara slowly raised her head. "The tower," she said. "Akio."

"Something like that." Marie's strange serenity hadn't changed. "Please, Kara. Go. What you find, there and before you reach there, will tell you everything." She stepped forward in the reflection, and put her arms around the Utena there, who closed her eyes and leaned backward into Marie's embrace. "When you know, I will come back to you."

Marie disappeared, taking Kara's reflection with her.

Kara rubbed at her eyes, the uniform's long sleeves soft against her skin, then turned and looked toward the center of campus. The tower stood there, as always, above everything. Kara focused on the very top, on the round-topped windows and the dome, on what she knew lay behind the windows and on who called the place home.

"Not this time," Kara swore. "Never. You bastard."

She rose to her feet and walked toward the tower.

As she approached, a subtle weight slowly filled her hand, so that when she reached the entrance, she knew what she held. The Sword of Dios, the blue gleam along its blade oddly familiar, rested against her fingers. When she raised her hand to look at the sword, she noticed that she wore no ring. Kara almost smiled. Perhaps she could still call this a dream, still hope to wake up. This just wasn't right unless she wore a ring.

The elevator at the base of the tower stood closed, and Kara found no button to push to summon a lift to the top. Instead, a wide staircase with no rail began there, winding its way up and up and up the tower. Kara looked. All the way to the top, the stairs went. She hefted the Sword of Dios onto her shoulder, and began to climb.

Nearly three circles around the tower, and she heard footsteps on the stairs ahead. Kara held the sword ready, and walked slowly, pausing only to wonder why her legs weren't even tired after all that climbing. A moment later, she pushed that thought from her mind as someone came to stand before her.

Kara chuckled. "Yeah, I'm dreaming. Putting you first is definitely how I'd do it."

Saionji stood before her in all his green-haired glory, smugness and superiority clear in his stance and sneer. "You don't get to go any further," he said. "You can't possibly beat me."

"Oh, really?" Kara laughed out loud, making it as mocking as possible. "You got your ass kicked way too much to act like that."

And then, Kara again doubted that she was dreaming, because the next words from Saionji were ones she never could have pictured him saying.

"This isn't about me."

Kara dropped into a ready stance, holding the Sword of Dios before herself. "Then what the hell's it about?" She managed to keep herself from growling, but just barely. "I'm getting tired of all this mysterious--"

Great bells rang in the distance. Saionji drew his katana and leaped at her, and the duel was on.

Kara swept her sword up and caught his blade, and fought for footing on the stairs. Some part of her mind railed against this – fighting Saionji, who didn't look like a cartoon character; he seemed as real as herself. The glinting edge of his sword only proved that. Kara shoved hard, forcing him to take a step back.

"So," she said through gritted teeth, "who's this all about?"

"Who else?" Saionji pulled back and swept a high strike at her, which Kara ducked. She felt the wind of the sword's passing stir her hair. "You! It's always been about you, no matter how hard any of us tried!"

"Issues!" Kara yelled back at him, fighting back sudden laughter. "You still have so damn many issues!"

They traded attacks, back and forth, always moving within the same six or seven steps, until Kara ducked in low. She stabbed at Saionji's green rose, nicked a petal's edge, then spun her blade in a sweeping cut. The rose exploded into a storm of petals, which rose into the air in an ever-expanding spiral.

Kara stood there for a quiet moment, watching the petals rise higher and higher. When they were out of her sight, she turned to Saionji. His sword was gone, and he stood with his back to her, his head-half turned. He looked at her with one eye.

"Do you remember what?" he asked.

"Do I remember . . . what do I remember," she said, mostly to herself. "I remember. . . ." The shiver came again, quivering from her spine into her soul. It sounded insane, but she had to know. "We've fought before, yeah?"

"Good. You do remember." Starlight swept across Saionji's eyes. "Continue." And he was gone.

Kara started at the spot where he'd stood for a moment, then continued up the tower.

Two more spirals around, and Kara saw someone else ahead. She recognized the slender silhouette, and as she came closer, she saw her suspicions confirmed. She swung her sword down from where it rested. This wasn't going to be nearly as fun, she thought. Saionji had always deserved his beatings.

Miki? Not so much.

"Let me guess," Kara said as she approached him. "I have to fight you too."

"There's another way," Miki said with a smile bordering on friendly, "but you'd have to turn back. And I don't think you want to do that."

She raised her sword. "You got that right."

Miki's smile remained. "So much has changed. But some things about you will never change, no matter how long it's been." He saluted her with his sword, then dropped into a fencer's stance and lunged.

Kara dodged his first strike, pushed herself off of the side of the tower, then spun to face him, gaining the higher ground. Miki nodded, as though he approved. Their blades clashed once, twice, blue sparks flying forth from the Sword of Dios.

"You've been practicing," Miki said.

"Not really." Kara leaped back as Miki's sword missed her chest by a hair. She realized she wasn't wearing a rose. "The hell!"

"You haven't realized?" Miki asked. He paused. "These aren't duels, Kara. These are lessons." He lunged at her once more.

Trying not to die seemed like a good lesson, Kara thought, though she was sure there was something else she was supposed to learn. She smiled. "You'll upset Anthy if you hurt me," she said.

Miki's eyes widened, and Kara knew she had him. She feinted to the left, then whipped her sword up as Miki took the bait. His rose flew apart, and again, the rose petals spiraled up into the air, as though guided by their own personal wind.

Kara looked at Miki. He smiled, saluted her again, then bowed. "Well fought. Tell me – do you remember who?"

"Anthy," Kara said, then, "Marie." She let her breath out in a rush. "That's always what it's been about, hasn't it? No matter what, she's always at the middle of whatever's going on. One way or another."

"She isn't the only one," Miki said. Starlight swept across his eyes. "Continue." And he was gone.

Kara looked up the stairs, and realized who – if this followed the sequence she thought it would – she'd have to face next. She bit back a curse and continued up the stairs, taking them more slowly than before. Knowing that this had a purpose didn't help; she remembered all too well what happened when Utena fought Juri. Those were the only duels that Utena didn't truly win.

Two spirals later, Juri stood with her back to Kara, staring off across campus as though she also wondered what could possibly be happening here. Kara stopped when she knew she was well out of a sword's range, her legs tense. For a long moment, neither of them said anything. Then Juri turned to her, a strange kind of empathy in her eyes.

"So," Juri said. "It's come to this."

"I can't turn back," Kara said, shaking her head. "As much as I don't want to fight you, I can't go back."

"It's a quality you've always had," Juri said. "But I'll do what I must."

Juri spun so quickly Kara barely saw her move, and she brought her sword up just in time to block Juri's blow. They traded strikes there on the stairs, fighting back and forth along the tower's spiral, neither willing to give any ground. Kara snapped her sword left, right, anywhere, but found no opening in Juri's impeccable defense.

The only way she could think to defeat Juri was, more than anything else, a cheap shot. But it might work. In one of the brief moments when both duelists paused to catch their breath, Kara looked just past Juri's shoulder.

She said, "Oh, hey, Shiori."

Juri froze. Kara struck. Juri's blade caught the Sword of Dios, and she pressed hard against Kara's attack. They clinched, their faces close, and Kara snickered. Just as Juri opened her mouth to ask what was so funny, Kara snaked her free hand up and snatched the rose from Juri's chest.

The rose scattered itself around her fingers, the petals following the previous ones, toward the top of the tower. Juri gave Kara an appraising look, then bowed her head and smiled.

"New tricks," Juri said. "Not from any time you dueled me."

Kara shook her head, and grinned back at the other girl. "Old tricks," she said. "From the last time I had to duel." She didn't say it, but was privately glad she hadn't had to give Juri a knee like she'd done to Henry.

"So you've continued to learn." Juri's smile faded. "But that doesn't change things. Do you remember when?"

Kara looked down at campus again, and only nodded. So long ago, longer than she was old. "I think so," she said quietly.

"Good." Starlight swept across Juri's eyes. "Continue." And she was gone.

Kara began the climb again, more slowly this time. Hints of what awaited her at the top slithered through her mind, coming forth from the darker corners. Another sequence of duels, even if Miki said they were lessons. This had far too much of a chance to end very, very badly.

She almost didn't notice her next challenger when she came upon her. How she managed to miss Nanami, clad in her yellow-and-black dueling garb, Kara wasn't sure. But the younger girl held curved sword and dagger at her hips, and gave Kara a look that reminded her too much of some of the girls at her high school.

Kara dropped back into a fighting stance. "Bring it," she said.

"You always underestimate me," Nanami snapped, and flung herself at Kara.

Nanami's style was wild and random, and Kara found herself on the defensive as she tried to tell where the other girl's next strike could come from. Such a mystery. . . . As soon as the thought came to her, Kara knew how to defeat Nanami.

When confronted with something that made no sense, the best thing to do was approach it head-on, deal with it, and kick it in the head if she had to. Once she'd had a reason to fight, Kara had never shied away from a duel. That wouldn't change now.

A single, swift strike directly at Nanami's chest, and Kara speared her rose on the tip of the sword of Dios, stopping Nanami's wild attacks cold. The petals floated up, slowly, as though in no hurry; the top of the tower grew ever closer.

"So tell me," Nanami said, her voice still haughty, "do you remember where?"

That's it, Kara thought. She looked out across campus again. All of this place was a mystery, it always had been. And the best way to deal with that was, again, to go for the heart. "Yeah," she said. "Ohtori."

Nanami stepped back, put the back of her hand to her mouth, and laughed her annoying laugh. "Of course," she said. Starlight swept across Nanami's eyes. "Continue." And she was gone.

Kara looked up. The stairs continued, but she could tell there wasn't much left ahead of her. And one more duel. Maybe she would give this one the knee. He deserved it, for more reasons than she had time to think over now.

She did as all the duelists had bid her, and continued upward. Little more than a full circle around the tower later, Touga stood before her, his shirt hanging open, his sword already drawn. He gave her a smile that she guessed was supposed to be dashing.

Kara nodded to his sword. "Compensating for something?"

Touga laughed, and Kara stepped back as her heart started to pound. The laugh shouldn't have sounded so familiar, or set the strange shiver of memories to chilling through her again. She leaped at him, sword out and ready, and nearly knocked the rose from him with her first strike. Touga deftly sidestepped her, still laughing.

"It's not that easy," he said, "and it never should be."

Kara turned as soon as she was past him, holding her sword ready. Touga raised his own sword before himself. "None of this is easy," she said, breathing hard, then smirked. "You're the only easy one here."

"Such a simple sense of humor," Touga said, his laugh gently mocking. "Perhaps you're not truly her."

Kara yelled and charged, leaping down the steps between the two of them, bringing her sword around for a single hard strike. Touga stepped back and caught her blade on his sword's guard, bringing them both into a close clinch. He pressed hard against her, forcing her backwards up the stairs.

"This isn't a game!" he yelled. "This is nothing to laugh about!"

"I'm not laughing!" Kara yelled back. "I don't know what the hell's going on. . . ." She called on all her strength, and forced Touga back a step of his own. "But I'm not stopping! I have to find Marie again!"

Touga frowned, the seriousness seeming out of place on him. "Still playing the prince?"

"I'm not playing!"

Touga stepped back and held his arms apart, leaving himself open. Kara felt another sudden memory – this had happened before – she recognized it from in the anime and within that deeper part of herself. But this time, she swore, she wouldn't fall for his trick, and sliced the rose from him.

Red petals burst into the air and spun up toward the top of the tower, and somewhere in the distance, great bells rang. The duels were over.

"So you do remember why," Touga said.

Kara looked down at the Sword of Dios. It glowed a bright gold, and faded from her hand. "Yeah, I do," she said. "To be the prince."

"Only for her?"

Kara looked at him, about to ask, but Touga only smiled again. Starlight swept across his eyes. "Continue." And he was gone.

The final turn around the tower led to the very top, and when Kara reached the summit, she saw a path of rose petals, all the five colors of the duelists, leading toward one of the tall windows of the tower's highest floor. She walked along that path, and when she reached the windows, the petals formed an arch for her to walk through.

Kara entered the room at the top of the tower. The red stone floor shined, reflecting the midday light, and the planetarium projector stood at the center, dark and silent. Kara walked toward it, following the last stray rose petals, and when she reached the machine, shutters above the windows all fell at once, and the room was lost in darkness.

Before Kara could do anything more than gasp, the projector came to life, casting a new and changed light around the room. The lower sphere held the world, an ovoid glass globe filled only with Ohtori, and the upper sphere held the stars.

She looked at the two spheres, and understood. The one with Ohtori inside was egg-shaped for a reason. With all that had happened on the way up here, it could be no other way. As she approached it, the shivers came again, and when she lay her hand upon the sphere's surface, she knew what – who – lay inside.

Herself.

Kara stepped back, raised one foot, and kicked in the world's shell, sending cracks popping and snapping across its surface. The shell's mirrored inside cast back starlight, and when Kara looked inside, Utena looked back at her once more.

Moving together, both of them pressed their hands to the shell's inner surface. A single drop from Kara's still-wounded palm dripped toward the shell, and when it struck, red ripples passed along the mirror. Their hands met, and Utena faded into pink smoke, her essence trickling through the shell and into Kara's palm.

The wound closed, and the sphere of stars brightened.

Kara turned, dozens of new memories flickering through her head, her eyes open wide. In the sphere, she saw herself as she had once been, pink hair and boys' uniform and more determination than any one girl should have. She stood in a chamber of stone, next to a man in black with skin pale enough to pull all the color out of a room.

The man held a rose ring, the familiar seal made of pink crystal. He touched it to Utena's forehead. When he spoke, Kara found herself mouthing the words.

"_Be well, Utena Tenjou. You will have a second chance with the one you love, with the one who loves you. Not everyone gets that."_

Kara watched as her former self discorporated into a cloud of pink smoke, watched as the man – Morpheus, she knew his name to be – found her as an infant, watched as he placed Utena's essence into her so that she would grow to be. . . .

Who she now was.

As the images faded from the starry sphere, Kara bowed her head, and rubbed at the place on her hand where the rose ring should have been. Her quiet whisper filled the vast room.

"I remember now."


	3. Chapter 2: Reality Approaches

A Duel for All the World: Chapter Two – Reality Approaches, Frantically

The room exploded into rose petals, pink and purple and white, leaving Kara standing in the middle of an ever-expanding cloud. She waited there until the petals blew away, until all that remained was the red stone floor she stood upon and the tower's elevator doors. She watched the doors, waiting.

"_When you know, I will come back to you."_

A quiet 'ding' rang through the emptiness, and the elevator doors opened. Marie stood there, clad in the Ohtori girls' uniform, her green eyes bright. She stepped forward, and the doors closed behind her, and she smiled at Kara.

"Welcome back."

Kara ran for her and pulled her into a fierce hug. "Marie!"

"I'm here, I'm here." Marie returned the hug, her arms falling around Kara's waist. "I told you I would come back."

"This is Ohtori," Kara said. She didn't let go. "I didn't know if you meant it. I didn't know if it was really you. I just had to keep going, so I could find out." Her words came out faster and faster, as though she feared never being able to speak again. "I don't know why we're here again, but I remember everything. Everything. I remember – you're her. You're really her."

"In a way," Marie said. She squeezed Kara once more, then pulled back and looked the other girl in the eye. "Things were very different for us."

"I know," Kara said. She turned her head and took a deep breath. "It's all there, in my head, it's like – I don't know what it's like. But I remember you. How you were then, I mean." She reached out and drew her fingers through Marie's purple hair, took a soft lock of it between her fingers. "I remember this."

"You didn't do that, back then."

Kara looked at Marie, caught the hints of suggestion and tease in her eyes. She remembered Anthy's dream as she'd fled to the waking world, and her own surprise at seeing that Anthy wanted things to be different between them, to be more.

Not now, Kara told herself. There would be time for all of that, but not now. Now. . . . "We're in the Dreaming, aren't we?"

Marie nodded. "And Dream wishes to speak with us both." She took Kara's hand, and started walking toward the elevator.

"So that's what you meant, when you said that just because this is a dream, it doesn't mean it's not real," Kara mused. "I forgot about that. I forgot everything."

"That's as it should have been."

Marie didn't look back, but Kara heard the sudden hardness in her voice. This was a difficult subject, one they'd not talked about in any detail. Now would be a good time, Kara supposed.

"But it wasn't like that for you," Kara said, more quietly than usual. "You – Anthy-you – found Marie, and she let you come in, she wanted to be someone else." She paused, and when Marie said nothing, she continued. "So you're all one person now, aren't you? If you remember being here--"

"Katherine," Marie said softly.

Kara stopped talking.

"This is the place where anything can be. It's best if we don't try to define it too much." She looked over her shoulder and smiled. "I'm Marie. I was once Anthy, and I was once only Marie. Does it matter more than that?"

Kara squeezed her hand. "No."

They reached the elevator doors, and both reached forward to press the button. Instead of the familiar rose motif, the button bore the image of an unusual mask, one shaped of metal with round, bulging eyes and a creature's spine descending from the front. A gong sounded when they pushed the button, and the doors slid open.

Kara and Marie stepped into the elevator, and the doors closed, and the other side opened into a vast, deep canyon. Rose vines, sharp and twisted, climbed up the canyon's walls. The same starry sky glimmered above them.

Kara took a few steps forward, then looked behind herself. Nothing but a tangle of vines. "This was where I went to find you," she said. "With Matthew first, then with Morpheus, and we had to go into Delirium's place." She shook her head. "That was so weird."

"It was where I needed to be," Marie said. She paused, and looked Kara up and down. "I suppose it's for the best that my lord doesn't put much value on appearances."

Kara gave her a curious look, then glanced down at herself. She was clad once again in her tank top and boxer shorts, her usual sleepwear during the warmer months. Marie still wore her nightgown. Kara chuckled, then said, "He's the one who wanted us here right now. He could have given us a minute to get dressed."

They joined hands once more, and climbed out of the canyon, warped rose vines parting as they walked, until they reached a large wooded valley. Kara started to smile as they wandered into the forest, toward a lake she recognized.

"Gilbert!" Kara called. No answer. "Gilbert!"

"I wonder what's happened to him," Marie said. "Even this late, he would have been glad to greet travelers."

"Huh." Kara looked around again. "Maybe something's gone weird with the Dreaming, and Morpheus needed our help." She chuckled. "That'd be just our luck. Something goes so wrong that someone like him needs us."

Marie smiled faintly, but said, "I don't think that's the case. And . . . he isn't Morpheus, anymore."

Kara frowned. "He isn't?"

"Things can change, even for the eternal," Marie said. "Let's keep going."

They continued, and Kara asked no more questions, though she kept looking over her shoulder for Gilbert's once-again familiar form. Something about not finding him here made the entire place seem uncomfortable, as though it was no longer Fiddler's Green. She'd landed here, so long ago, after falling through . . . somewhere, in search of Anthy. He was her first memory after the final duel.

When they reached the edge of Fiddler's Green, Kara looked back one last time, and said a silent goodbye, hoping it wouldn't be the last one.

A bridge of solid, transparent emerald awaited them on the other side of the forest. The bridge's facets lay within and without, different layers of jewel catching the starlight and spreading it throughout the emerald, so that the entire bridge seemed to glow with its own light. Kara looked over at Marie, saw that her eyes didn't quite match the emerald, but that she did look surprised.

"This is new?" she asked.

Marie started to say something, then closed her mouth and nodded. "Some things in the Dreaming remain constant, others are shaped and reshaped as Dream wishes them to be," she said, then turned to Kara and gave her a sardonic smile. "And do you think things would be just how I remembered them to be, when I've not been here for so long?"

"It's only been seventeen years," Kara said, then smirked when Marie gave her a look. "Okay, that was a short visit. But still."

They followed the bridge, which stretched above a patchwork of lands natural and bizarre, and arrived at a field the color of bone. An enormous mausoleum rested in the center of the massive grey valley, pure white stone, statues of angels holding eternal flames at all four corners. The doors, many stories high, stood closed.

Kara stopped and stared. A moment later, Marie stopped as well, and looked to her.

"Kara?" she asked. "What is it?"

"I remember that," Kara said, her voice quiet. "When I was a kid, I had a dream . . . it was some kind of funeral, and it seemed like everyone in the world was there. Maybe more than the world. I remember talking to people, and then we all went inside, and there were some other people who talked about the man who'd died, they all knew him." She paused, and bowed her head. "Everyone seemed so sad, but there was this pale woman in a red dress, and. . . ."

Kara shook her head. "I don't remember what she said. But . . . once she said it, it was all okay."

"My lord told me of this, while you were remembering," Marie said. "Morpheus died, years after you met him. I was still bound in his crystal."

"You mean. . . ." Kara began.

"I never had that dream," Marie whispered. Kara looked at her, and Marie lowered her eyes. They continued on.

A pockmarked moon rose behind them, illuminating their destination. A castle, some kind of amalgamation of fairy tale palace and Spanish villa, rose from the ground, the moon's white light casting a glow over its pale stone. The castle's keep stood taller than the rest of it, a massive stained glass window taking up most of the upper stories. Faint green light shined from within the window, an odd contrast to the colorless building.

The emerald bridge led to a road that continued to the castle's front doors, and they drew near, Marie held out a hand for Kara to stop. Strange, mythical beings – a griffin and a pegasus – stood at either side of the doors, and a long-winged serpent lay above them, all looking intently at the two travelers.

Marie spoke as though delivering a speech, standing tall with her shoulders thrown back. "I am Marie who was once Anthy, the one Morpheus saw fit to let control the Dreaming in my own small way. My lord Dream has summoned us both to his castle, and he bids you grant us entry."

The guardian beasts said nothing, but the doors swung open. Kara and Marie entered.

Inside, the castle walls took on haphazard appearance, pale bricks of all shapes and sizes, with mortar of the same shade between each stone. Kara and Marie walked closer together, the narrow halls oddly claustrophobic.

"This is definitely not what I remember," Kara said. "What happened to Morpheus, after he died?"

"He became himself, but not who he used to be." Marie smile as Kara gave her a look of utter incomprehension. "It's not easy to explain. He's still himself, but not as you remember him."

Kara just shook her head again. "I'll take your word for it," she said, "and figure it out when I see him."

The hallway they'd come in led to only one destination: a large peaked door. Like everything else in the castle, it had no color of its own, just the same kind of ethereal paleness.

The door opened at their approach, and a calm voice said, "Enter."

Kara and Marie walked into the throne room, with its high, peaked ceiling and walls made of the same white stone and uneven bricks. Arcs of stained-glass windows adorned the upper walls, small pictures in nonsensical sequences. Not far from the door, a throne sat upon a small dais, a wide-bodied chair with sphinxes at the ends of its arms, looking haughty and proud.

The man sitting upon the throne, by contrast, seemed open and friendly.

He, too, was pale; had the castle been made of flesh or he of stone it would have been impossible to tell them apart. His hair was bushy, his eyes and the skin around them pure blackness, and he wore an unusual outfit that seemed inspired by Japanese fashion as seen through the filter of hundreds of years and a stylist who enjoyed pointed shoulders. A faceted green gem hung from a silver chain around his neck, and bands of cloth studded with smooth, round red jewels wound around his forearms.

The man steepled his fingers before himself and smiled at Kara and Marie. "Welcome back."

Kara cracked a smile. Maybe death really had changed him; the Morpheus she remembered was a man of many more words. "It's just Dream now, right?" she asked.

"It is." His smile changed, ever so slightly more familiar, as though given to old friends. "I apologize to you both for bringing you here in such a manner. But something has changed, and it is time for you both to repay your debt to me." He gestured, and two chairs appeared behind them. "Please, sit. We have much to discuss."

Kara and Marie both sat, and a table with small glasses of water appeared between their chairs. They both drank, and when they were finished, Dream leaned back in his throne and tilted his face toward the ceiling.

"Ohtori still exists," he said simply.

Kara nearly said that was enough of a problem right there, but restrained herself. She glanced over at Marie. The other girl didn't look surprised at all, but neither did she look bothered or worried. Kara relaxed a little. If Ohtori was still there, but Dream didn't seem to think it was a threat, then Akio truly was dead.

"Ohtori," Dream continued, "and all its people. Most of them are Akio's creations, but not all.

"When Akio died, I became aware of another dream of mine that he held. I don't believe this one was a prisoner, like you, Anthy. I know your name is Marie now, but you must understand it's difficult for me to think of you otherwise."

Marie smiled. "I don't mind, my lord."

Dream nodded, and his expression grew more serious. "The problem is that this dream has a habit of taking whatever appearance and name is most convenient for it. The dream itself has no set form, and as long as it is within Ohtori's walls, it has no name that I can tell. This leads to another problem."

Kara frowned. Dream was leading up to something, that much she could tell; what she wasn't sure of was why he had called upon them to help him. He could get to Ohtori, she remembered that. What would stop him from simply going there and getting back his lost dream?

"My sister-brother, Desire, claims Ohtori as its own," Morpheus said, "and I believe it prepares another game there, similar to the ones Akio used to play." His expression hardened. "I know it knows my dream is there. And I will not allow Desire to play with another of my dreams."

"So that's why you need us," Kara said. She cracked a smile. "I remember, you had some rules about what you could or couldn't do. So there's a rule, you can't go to Ohtori yourself?"

Dream shook his head. "It's a realm owned by one of we Endless, and Desire has made it off-limits to the rest of us. But not the two of you."

"But why us, Lord?" Marie asked. "I know you have dreams who could do this better than we could."

"No," Dream said, "I do not. None of my dreams know Ohtori as you two do. And when Desire begins its new game, Ohtori's denizens will need whatever help they can get." Stars twinkled in his eyes, and Kara knew he looked directly at her. "They will need your help, Kara. They will need to be reminded of what it means to have someone who is willing to stand for what they believe in."

Kara leaned back in her chair. "No pressure," she muttered.

The look on Dream's face didn't change. "Remind them, Kara. Remind them what it means to be the prince. Ohtori is badly in need of one."

* * *

Marie recognized the room.

Many years ago, Utena had brought her here, after rescuing her from the warped sensorium of Delirium's realm. Marie only remembered bits and pieces of her time there; she knew that was for the best, and Morpheus might have made that time easier to forget. But her time in the Dreaming was clear, and she remembered this room.

The four-poster bed right out of a fairy tale, the fireplace on one wall, the round-topped window, the overly large bath in the other room, all were just as they had once been. The walls were now the same uneven brick construction as the rest of the castle, but everything else remained the same. As before, the logs in the fireplace had caught fire as soon as she and Kara arrived.

They'd come by Dream's sending, of course, he'd simply waved a hand and they were here, without the cold sense of being nowhere that had always been part of one of Morpheus's transfers of place. She'd grown used to them, back when she was no more than a complicated dream, and upon her return to the Dreaming, they'd seemed oddly comforting.

She turned and looked at Kara, saw the other girl's wide eyes. How this must be for her, Marie couldn't guess. While Marie had taken the time to let her thoughts and memories blend so that she was one being within herself, Kara had only just regained her former life. Marie turned, sat on the bed's edge, and waited.

"It's weird," Kara said, her voice soft and dreamlike. "An hour ago, I didn't remember this room at all. But as soon as we got to the castle, I started to hope it'd be here." She grinned, and shook her head. "Does that make sense?"

Marie nodded. "It does." She looked at Kara's perplexed expression, and smiled. "It'll take time, Katherine. But you'll grow used to this."

"I hope so." Kara stepped over to the bed and threw herself upon it, kicked her legs up into the air a time or two, then rolled over onto her back. "Right now," she said, "I just want to go to sleep . . . and hope this is all still here when I wake up."

"It will be." Marie scooted over toward here, and gently rubbed her hand across Kara's stomach, tracing small circles with her fingertips.

A moment later, Kara put her hand over Marie's. "I remember seeing you dream," Kara said, her voice soft again. "You ran, and there wasn't anything I could do, just watch you run." She toyed idly with Marie's fingers. "But more than anything, I remember watching you, and Morpheus saying this was what you wanted, that the dream you made was how you really wanted things to be."

They both were silent for a moment. Then, Marie slowly raised Kara's hand to her lips, and gently kissed it. "Did that surprise you?" she whispered.

"Yeah," Kara said. She stared up at the canopy. "I didn't think that was what you wanted. With . . . with us."

Marie flicked Kara's skin with the tip of her tongue.

"I know that now," Kara said, and gave Marie a sly grin. "But it was a surprise, then. You were always so – I don't even know how to put it. But I wouldn't have thought you wanted to kiss me, back then. Among other things."

Still holding Kara's hand, Marie lay down on her side, and Kara turned to face her. Marie slowly stroked her free hand from Kara's shoulder down to her waist, and let it rest on Kara's hip. She knew the look that came to Kara's face; the other girl was trying to hide a blush. But they both knew where Marie's motions came from, the scene in the Utena movie was one of their favorites.

"There were many things," Marie said quietly, "you didn't know then. But you know them all now. I don't have any more secrets from you, Kara."

Kara squeezed Marie's hand. "Were you going to tell me? What really happened to make you part Anthy, and that I used to be Utena?"

Marie blinked at her, slowly. "Would you have believed me?"

For a moment, Kara didn't answer. When she spoke, her voice was quiet and low, and lacked much of her usual confidence.

"I don't know. After everything that happened, after we went to that place that was like Ohtori, after we killed Akio – I think if you'd told me then, I would have believed you. I would have believed almost anything, so much weird stuff had happened. And it would have made sense, I guess." She paused. "Did you know? When we met, did you know?"

"I hoped." Marie held Kara's hand between both of hers. "When you came to me that morning, and said you were going to duel for me, I started to hope. But I hoped with Sharon as well. I knew that, if you were going to come to me, it wouldn't be as a boy."

Kara sniggered into the bedcovers. "That would have been fun. Seriously. Nothing like playing the girl's part and the prince at the same time."

"You never played at being the prince," Marie said. "It was always you. It was always Utena. Akio's greatest mistake was giving you reason to believe in yourself, in making that belief strong enough to break his hold over you." She looked away. "I waited so long for him to make that mistake," she whispered.

"Hey." Kara lifted Marie's chin, making their eyes meet. "You rescued yourself, I know how that ending went. And then we rescued each other. This is the third time we've had to deal with this. No one rescues anyone this time. It's all us."

"Then it is." Marie leaned toward her, and they shared a long, slow kiss, and Marie knew she had no reason to worry.

They were together again, two lives spent searching for each other. Even the Endless could not separate them again.

* * *

Kara awoke and wondered where Marie was. Then she looked to the room's arched window, at the patterns that Anthy had put there. Tiny scenes shaped into the glass told Utena's story, leading all the way up to Utena standing with her sword pointing defiantly at Akio's shadowy image.

She resisted the urge to swear at the window, just because gloating about finally taking out Akio always felt good. Then again. . . . All she'd ever known was that they'd run someone or something who seemed to be Akio through with a motorcycle, and after that, Marie said she was no longer the Rose Bride. Kara hadn't realized just what that meant, that the strange mix of Anthy and Marie was finally herself again.

At least, if Dream was sending them back to Ohtori, Marie was fully free of Akio's influence, and there was no reason for either of them to fear for their memories, or their free will. Kara shuddered, remembering the meeting with Akio when Morpheus had brought her back to the school. It would have been far, far too easy to slip back under his control again, and forget everything that had happened.

Wait.

Kara's eyes opened wide as she realized. What about everyone else at Ohtori? They were Akio's creations, but she'd been one too before being reborn; they deserved their own chance to be free of his will. And they'd been there for the seventeen years since she escaped. But for over a year, Akio hadn't been around.

Would they all still be there? Had any of them found a way out? She supposed that was part of what Dream wished her to find; if there was a way to escape Ohtori, his errant dream could have taken it as well; it could be anywhere. Kara shook her head. If the dream had escaped Ohtori, there would have been no reason for Dream to call upon her and Marie.

So there was no way out.

Kara pushed that thought aside and looked past the patterned glass in the window that was now a door, to the new balcony, the familiar balcony. Marie stood out there, at the edge.

Clenching her teeth against a torrent of curses, Kara leaped out of bed and flung the door open. "Marie!" she yelled. Too many memories flickered through her head, of Marie and Anthy and balconies and edges and–

"Good morning, Kara," Marie said. The wind played through her long purple hair, casting it in long waves down her back. "Do you want to watch the sun rise?"

Kara let her breath out all at once, and stumbled to Marie's side, the rush of adrenaline fading from her all at once. She slumped down next to the other girl, and reached up to put her arm around Marie's waist. "You scared the hell out of me."

"I have no reason to jump," Marie said. "I thought you'd realize that."

"I just woke up." Kara rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, wondering once again how she'd slept in a dream. "I wasn't thinking clearly, okay?"

"I'll forgive you." Marie sat down and leaned against her, looking out toward the mountains, where pink and yellow light held the promise of morning to come. "I'm glad you woke up, though. I remember the sunrises here. When the sun rose, which didn't always happen, when my lord was in his darker moods, it was always beautiful . . . and always different."

Kara nodded, but said nothing.

They watched as the light over the mountains grew and bloomed, sending glowing shades across the world, light pooling in valleys and forests and across landscapes too strange to exist in the waking world, until the yellow glow reached the castle at the heart of the Dreaming. The pale stone seemed to come alive, taking on the sun's colors and making them its own, until Kara swore she felt the palace stir as it too awakened to greet the new day.

"So," Marie said, her green eyes glimmering in the sunlight, "are you ready to return to Ohtori?"

Kara stood, and began to stretch her legs. A moment later, she realized what she was doing, then started to laugh. Marie laughed along with her. That was answer enough for them both.

"Hey," Kara said as they walked back into their room, "I was wondering about something."

Marie blinked slowly at her, then yawned. "What?"

"So since everything that happened to Nanami, the elephants and the egg thing and all that, was all you, are you going to apologize to her?"

Marie looked away, and seemed to be considering. After a moment, she said, "Maybe."

Kara laughed. Good enough.

They found clothes for them both waiting in the armoire. It seemed Dream or whomever made clothes for the castle's denizens had done their research. The outfits in the armoire were similar to their school uniforms, though Kara's had shorts instead of a skirt, much to her relief. Once they were both dressed, Kara looked at them in the room's new mirror.

"We're not going to fit in at Ohtori, are we?" she asked, then glanced at Marie.

"That's new," Marie said. "I don't think I've ever heard you worry about fitting in or not before."

Kara shook her head. "Not what I meant," she said. "It's hard to forget those puffy sleeves." Kara tugged at her sweater sleeve, then looked around for something she could use to cut it off. "Everyone there dressed the same, except for the council members and . . . me."

"Then you'll feel right at home." Marie raised her hand, her palm held toward Kara. A moment later, Kara's sweater's sleeves disappeared.

Kara looked more closely at her sweater. It was like the sleeves had never been there. Memories came back, of the few times she'd seen Anthy change things here, back when she'd been Utena. "I'd almost forgotten about that," she said with a faint smile. "Until I saw the balcony. I'm glad you left it there this time."

Marie smiled and took Kara's arm, and guided her through the white stone halls of the castle, until they stood before the throne room's doors once more. The doors opened at their approach. The throne room looked much as it had before, though now the morning light shined in through the windows. Dream still sat upon his throne.

"Good morning," Dream said as they approached. "Did you sleep well?"

"I think so," Kara said, trying not to sound too disrespectful. While Dream was clearly an authority figure, he didn't have the patronizing tone she was used to getting from adults. "Thanks for the clothes, though."

Dream nodded. "Marie, are you well?"

"Yes, Lord, thank you," she said with a small curtsy. Kara raised an eyebrow at her; Marie didn't seem to notice. "It's good to be back here."

"I'm sorry it's no longer your home," Dream said, then gave a small smile. "But there is other business to attend to." He looked at them both, his dark eyes somber. "Are you ready to return to Ohtori?"

Kara's stomach clenched, and she started to wonder if 'never' was an option. But she remembered the debt, remembered the promise she'd made in return for getting to go to the waking world and meet Anthy again. She glanced at Marie again, then reached out and took her hand.

Having Marie was worth any debt. Even if it meant going back.

"We are," Kara said. "You getting us there?"

"Indeed." Dream stood, and walked down the steps from his throne, the emerald around his neck casting a faint green light on him and everything around him. He reached into one large sleeve, and pulled something out. Kara caught a faint gleam of silver as he approached her.

"Before you go," Dream said, "I believe you'll want this back. Hold out your hand, Kara."

Kara did, and Dream dropped a ring into her palm. She looked down at it and gasped.

The rose ring, the one she had worn all through her life at Ohtori and into the Dreaming, lay in her hand. Kara turned it between her fingers, and saw that the rose, once some kind of pink stone, was now made of translucent pink crystal. She slipped it onto her finger. It fit perfectly.

Kara looked Dream in his dark eyes, and smiled at the small glimmer of green there. She grinned. "Thank you," she said.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Marie hold her hand behind her back. Kara looked at her, but Marie shook her head.

"Of course," Dream said. "It may help show those at Ohtori that you are who you say you are. If you're ready. . . ?"

Kara felt Marie take her hand, and she squeezed back. "We're ready," she said.

Dream held his hand over the green gem again, and its glow grew brighter. "Good fortune to you both," he said. "I don't know what game Desire intends to play, but I'm certain you can find a way to help everyone there. And no matter what happens, do not forget your mission for me.

"Find my errant dream. And save Ohtori's people."

Dream held his hand out toward them, and the green glow bloomed forth, then surrounded them both. The world dissolved around them.

* * *

When Kara felt solid ground around her feet again, she didn't open her eyes. Some part of her still wanted to say this wasn't real, still wanted to wake up. But she heard people talking, heard the school-day chatter that she'd grown so used to, and knew that she wasn't asleep. This all felt too real; even the truest of dreams couldn't lose that strange sense of warped logic that kept it from being reality.

Then again, they'd just come from the realm of dreams to Ohtori Academy. Warped logic and reality could easily be the same thing.

"Kara?" Marie whispered next to her.

"I'm all right." Kara forced her eyes open.

The gates of Ohtori stood before her, just as she'd seen them in the series, just as she remembered them to be. All around her, students in their green and white uniforms walked, calling to each other and chatting and hurrying to class. Kara swallowed hard.

She'd done so much to get away. And now, here she stood, only a step away from returning.

She glanced at Marie, who was looking at only her. Kara took a deep breath. "I don't know," she said. "I just don't know."

"It has been a long time," Marie mused. She looked through the gates to the campus beyond. "Should we go?"

"Do we have a choice?" Kara let her breath out slowly, and steeled herself. What was there to be afraid of, really? Akio was dead; she and Marie had seen to that themselves. Normally she would have a problem with killing someone, but Akio had deserved it. It hadn't bothered her a bit at the time.

Kara squared her shoulders, nudged Marie and gave her a grin. "C'mon," she said. "Let's do what we have to so we can go home."

Marie smiled at her. "Yes, Katherine," she said quietly.

Kara smiled as they headed for the gates. Some things, Marie would never let go. Not that she really minded, but . . . of all the times to talk like the Rose Bride. Kara grimaced. Good thing they knew Akio was dead, otherwise this would be far too convenient of a time for Marie to start to act like she was nothing but a doll again.

They walked through the gates. Ohtori Academy stood all around them, with its tall white buildings and large courtyards and hills and trees and. . . . It was all so oddly perfect, so completely constructed to be an ideal kind of school. Kara frowned. None of it was real. And the chances were nobody here knew it.

"Where do you want to start?" Kara asked, then looked over when Marie didn't answer. "Marie?"

Marie stood a few steps behind her, gazing around. Kara walked back to her, and when she started to say something, Marie held up a hand for silence. Kara frowned. What was Marie doing?

The question only got worse when Marie raised her voice and started to sing.

Kara's mouth dropped open as Marie belted out some annoying pop song that had been way too popular at school earlier this year. Kara started to ask her what she was doing, then froze when she realized what was wrong.

No one paid any attention to them. No one stopped to look at the crazy singing girl, no one laughed at her from nearby, no one joined in. Kara had to admit that last one would have been too much, but still. It was like they weren't even there.

Kara poked at a guy's shoulder as he walked past. He didn't seem to notice. She tried to trip someone as they ran past, and they stepped right over her foot. Another shiver of memory came back – walking across Ohtori with Morpheus, after the day had started suddenly and they'd known that Akio expected them. Back then, it had seemed that no one on campus could see them or had any clue that they were there.

Then, she'd figured it was Akio's influence. Now that she knew it couldn't be. . . .

Kara tapped her foot and glared at Marie until she stopped singing. Marie gave her a smirk. "I get it," Kara said. "It's like we're not here. You could have just said so."

"It was better to demonstrate," Marie said. She looked past Kara, toward the middle of campus. "But I think someone has noticed us."

Kara turned, following Marie's gaze. She looked all the way up the tower, to the arched windows at the top, to where Akio had controlled all that happened. It was hard to see from this distance, but Kara thought she saw someone standing in the window. Whoever it was, they were dressed in white. A student council uniform.

"Wouldn't that just fit," Kara said, half to herself, and looked down at her ring. "Come on," she said to Marie. "Let's go have our class reunion."

Marie shuddered, but followed.

They continued across campus, away from the outlying buildings and toward the very center. When they reached the base of the tower, the elevator was where they expected it to be. They entered without hesitating, and when the doors slid shut, the elevator began to rise as soon as they pressed the button for the top floor.

Marie leaned closer to her, and Kara draped an arm around Marie's shoulders. Marie's hair was still purple, hanging wavy and loose down to her waist. "This isn't going to be easy," Marie whispered.

Kara nodded. "I know. How are we supposed to find someone when Dream can't?"

"A lot has happened," Marie said quietly, "and my lord isn't the same. The dreams know it, they all see him differently now."

"They do?" Kara asked, not sure if she wanted the answer. "Not 'we' do?"

"I'm not a dream anymore, Katherine," Marie said. She nudged Kara, and their eyes met. "I stopped being a dream when I left the Dreaming, when I became who I am now." She paused. "I can still act like one, when I'm in the Dreaming. And I'll always respect Dream. But he's not my master."

"Even when you curtsied and called him 'lord'?"

Marie giggled. "Formalities and old habits," she said.

The elevator doors opened into a room all too familiar, large and round with a red stone floor and the massive planetarium projector standing in the center. The couches and desk sat just where they had before, as though nothing had changed, and a small group of people stood not far from the elevator.

Kara and Marie entered the room, and Kara froze as she looked around. It seemed that everyone was here – everyone who'd ever worn a ring, even a Black Rose ring. Juri and Miki stood at the front of the group, she looking cross, he looking curious. Nanami stood a step behind them, her eyes narrowed. Tsuwabuki stood a step behind her, an unsure look on his face.

The rest stood scattered all around. Kozue and Shiori stood on opposite sides, Kozue looking angry and curious, Shiori like she couldn't possibly be more bored. Saionji leaned up against one wall, clad for the dojo, his wooden kendo sword resting against one shoulder. Touga, of course, leaned against the projector, Keiko's arms around his waist. Lastly, Kanae stood next to the elevator door, a vapid smile on her face.

Mingled memories of them all as real people and animated characters warred in Kara's mind, and she took a deep breath. This would not be easy. Best to start strong. She crossed her arms over her chest. "We need to talk."

"Who are you?" Juri asked. "Miki saw you come here, and--" She froze, her eyes on Kara's hand. "Your ring."

"It's a long story," Kara said. She held up her ring for everyone to see. Kozue started to walk toward her, as did Saionji. "I don't know if you'll believe me, but – I used to be Utena."

"Impossible," Saionji hissed. He continued toward her, his face a hard scowl. "She disappeared too long ago. You couldn't be her."

"She said she used to be," Miki said. He smiled politely at Kara. "What's your name now?"

"I'm Kara," she said. "This is Marie." She looked around again, at Touga and Saionji especially. "She used to be Anthy."

Kara braced herself for chaos. The room went dark.

"The hell?" Kara yelled. She wasn't the only one yelling. A moment later, a chilling, mocking laugh echoed through the room.

"So, you've all come to play. Good."

When the darkness faded and daylight shone through the windows again, a new figure stood at the center of the room. Perfect beautiful androgyny personified, it wore a red suit to match the room's floor, a black bowtie and a cigarette in a long-handled holder its only accessories. Its skin was pure white, its eyes yellow and slit-pupiled, catlike. It turned slowly in place, its two shadows moving slightly out of synch, its gaze taking in all those gathered.

The room remained silent. Kara managed to tear her eyes away from the red-clad being, looking to the flushed faces of the others. She remembered.

"Desire," Kara said. "Dream said you'd be here."

"Then this is a poor welcome for an expected guest," Desire said, then turned and fixed its gaze on Kara and Marie.

Its intoxicating scent swept toward them both, and Kara felt her knees go weak. She and Marie leaned against each other, and Kara clenched her fist, focusing on the ring. It had worked before.

"I've missed you both," Desire said, slinking toward them. "Akio was . . . a fool to let you go."

"Who are you!" Saionji strode forward. "And how do you know--"

Desire spun on Saionji, and purred as it leaned toward him, then reached out and drew one manicured fingernail down his chest. "So much repression," it said in a husky whisper. Saionji flushed red but didn't move away. He looked like he couldn't.

"We know why you're here," Marie said. "I don't think they'll want to play your game. They have a choice now."

Desire looked at her, and ran its tongue across its upper teeth. "Truly?" It turned away from Saionji, who remained paralyzed. "So, my brother's sent you to ruin my fun here. Hmm?"

"Something like that," Kara and Marie said at the same time.

"How cute." Desire snapped its teeth at them. "Since Akio failed so spectacularly, twice, I've had to repossess this little world. And I don't remember inviting you here."

Kara looked past Desire again, to the others. It seemed Desire's hold on them was complete. It was up to her. "We're here to protect them," Kara said, forcing herself to stand firm. "I owe Dream. We both do. So in other words, we're not leaving."

Desire didn't laugh, but gave Kara a razor-edged smile. Its eyes lit up, as though it had just had a brilliant idea. "Such determination. Since there's such a tradition in this place . . . let's begin a game. I'll even let you play too."

Desire threw its hand into the air. Five roses of indeterminate color flew forth from its sleeve and soared toward the windows, fell through the glass, and drifted down out of sight. "Five roses, across all of campus," Desire said. "They're hidden where you'd expect to find them. Those of you who find one, will fight in the final duel. Winner take all." It smirked. "Winner takes Ohtori.

"But of course. . . ." It put one finger to its lips, and looked around at everyone, an odd kind of tease. "If you don't want to play, you only have to find me, and tell me what you want." It paused. Silence. "Anything. It'll be yours."

It spun again, and held its arms out, addressing all gathered and holding their attention with ease. "Do we have a deal?"

"You can't be serious," Juri gasped. Beads of sweat dotted her forehead.

"I can be anything you want me to be," Desire said, giving Juri a smoldering look.

Kara stepped forward again, her footsteps deliberately loud on the stone. Watching the series, she'd always liked Juri. "Stop messing with her. We'll play your game." She glanced around the room. No one looked like they disagreed, though she didn't know if they could, with Desire's effect on them.

"Oh, yes," Desire said, looking back over its shoulder at Kara. "You will."

Then it was gone.


	4. Chapter 3: Come on Dive in

A Duel for All the World: Chapter Three – Come on Dive in

"We need to split up."

Kara looked around the room at everyone. After Desire made its disappearance, they'd all sort of wandered off for a while; she understood. Her memories of dealing with Desire were among the strongest, and its influence wasn't easy to resist. Everyone had to deal with it in their own way.

Eventually, though, they all returned to the planetarium room. Some looked angry, some looked afraid, some looked like they had no idea what to do now. Kara watched their faces, looking for signs of who was ready to do what.

She recognized that if she didn't take charge, no one would, and they'd all be doomed. This was why Dream had sent her here. Unfortunately, not everyone agreed.

"And why should we listen to you?" Touga asked, casual but taunting, leaning against one of the couches as though posing for a photograph. Keiko stood near him, but unlike before, she didn't seem eager to touch him. Her pigtails looked oddly wilted.

Saionji stepped forward with a scowl. "I could say the same for you," he said, giving Touga a stern look. "You've done nothing since we all came here."

"And you have?" Touga gave him an almost teasing look.

"Enough, both of you," Juri said, her voice firm. She gave Kara an appraising look. "You're clearly not her. But you do seem familiar. As do you," she continued, nodding to Marie, "but not in the same way."

"It's been a few years," Kara said, giving her a small smile.

"Maybe longer." Marie nodded to Juri, bowing her head more than seemed normal. "But I do remember you. I remember all of you. And I know Desire as well. If we don't find the roses, it'll pick us off, one by one."

"So where do we start looking?" Juri asked.

"We should go in teams," Miki said, then clicked his stopwatch. He frowned at the numbers. "It's clear that we can't all go together, and going out to search by ourselves has too many risks."

"Risks?" Kara glanced at Marie, who shook her head. "What risks?"

There was a moment of silence, then Tsuwabuki said, "It's falling apart. Everything's disappearing around the edges."

Kara remembered standing in Morpheus's scrying chamber, looking down at Ohtori hanging suspended in a star-filled void. If Ohtori itself was falling apart. . . . One more thing to worry about. Perhaps she'd been wrong about there being no way out – if they didn't find a way to deal with this, Ohtori would eventually provide its own escape. Whether they wanted it or not.

"So don't go alone," Kara said, looking around again. "And make sure you come back here at night." She gestured vaguely. "I've got a bad feeling about what'll happen if we start wandering around out there when it gets dark."

She didn't say it, but looking at all the former members of the student council – except Touga – she could see it in their eyes. Akio's car had always come at night, no matter whose turn it was to ride. And now, it would probably be Desire behind the wheel.

* * *

"She's important to me," Touga said. "I want you to keep her safe."

Tsuwabuki blinked up at him, wondering if this was real. He remembered . . . there were so many memories, and things tended to get jumbled up in his head. But he'd always wanted to be someone's big brother, usually Miss Nanami's, but sometimes someone else. And he'd always thought of Touga as what a big brother should be. Things had changed since they'd come here; it seemed Miss Nanami hardly thought of Touga as her big brother anymore. Tsuwabuki wasn't sure what had changed.

But if Touga was giving him a chance to prove himself, to show that he could protect someone, even someone older than him. . . .

"I'll do it," Tsuwabuki said. He looked over at Keiko. "Don't worry. I'll make sure you're all right."

Keiko blinked down at him, and didn't say anything. When Touga stepped back, she glanced at him, then moved to stand at Tsuwabuki's side. "Are you sure about this, Touga? I don't know where to go."

"I'm sure," Touga said with a nod. "I should help Saionji." He gave them both a lazy smile. "He'll get into some kind of trouble if I don't."

"And we don't need that," Tsuwabuki said. He nodded to himself. Definitely. He'd definitely keep Keiko out of trouble. "We'll be fine."

"Good." Touga's smile hadn't changed. "Do you know where to look?"

Tsuwabuki bowed his head to hide his blush. "I think so, Touga," he said. Another set of memories, these with an embarrassing end. He kind of hoped Miss Nanami had forgotten about that time.

Touga nodded once more, then waved as he turned and walked away. Tsuwabuki watched him leave, then looked up at Keiko. "Are you ready to go, or should we find someone else who's going?"

Keiko gave him a considering look, tilting her head to one side, giving her high pigtails an odd slant. She didn't seem to think much of him; Tsuwabuki was used to that look from grown-ups. It was usually because he was small. Well, he'd show her. He'd show Touga too, show that he could be trusted and dependable.

"We'd better go," Tsuwabuki said. For a moment, he almost reached out and took her hand, but held himself back. Touga might think he was trying something with Keiko, and Tsuwabuki didn't want him to think that. Brothers didn't do that to each other.

The two of them took the elevator down, and soon reached the main campus. It was nearly noon, and classes had just gotten out for lunch. All around them, students ran and yelled to each other, found places to eat, all that kind of thing. Tsuwabuki stood and watched them for a moment.

"I can't get used to this," Keiko said quietly.

"It's really strange." Tsuwabuki pointed. "Look! I had class with them." He paused, and frowned as all the memories started to clash together. "Over and over again, and we kept learning the same thing." He shook his head. "What do you think's going to happen?"

"Where are we going?" Keiko asked quickly.

Tsuwabuki looked up at her. He'd seen that look before, and not just on her. She didn't want to think about it. She looked like the other woman, the one he hadn't seen before – what was her name? Kanae. Kanae had been up in the tower first, and she never wanted to talk about anything that had happened. She looked like she was thinking, something that Miki and Juri had said.

She looked like she thought the past was their enemy, that it was too scary to think about much.

If Keiko was scared, then it was up to him to take charge. "The theater," Tsuwabuki said, and started to walk. "It's not too far."

They crossed campus without bothering a single person. Tsuwabuki wondered if anyone would be in the theater, then figured that if someone was, he could just try again later, or earlier tomorrow, now that he knew when there were people there. Miki had taught him a little about timing, so he could remember when the theater was occupied.

He needn't have worried. The theater was deserted, a thin coat of dust on the seats, the screen grey and dull. Tsuwabuki's footsteps echoed as he walked inside. When he didn't hear any other steps, he looked back, and saw Keiko standing there in the doorway.

"It's all right," he said. "There's no one here."

"Why. . . ." She took one step inside. "Why did you want to come here? That . . . person. . . ."

"Desire," Tsuwabuki said.

Keiko nodded, and shivered. "He – she said that we'd know where to find the roses." She took another step, then another; she seemed to be doing better now that they were actually here.

Why was she so afraid? It was just an empty room.

Tsuwabuki sighed, and looked at the screen. "There was a time," he began, "when I wanted to be an adult. I thought I could do that if I experienced all kinds of things, and so I came here, to watch . . . all kinds of things. I'm not sure what happened after that. When I ask Miss Nanami, she tells me not to worry about it."

"Do you think it was something bad?"

Tsuwabuki started to say something, then looked closely at her. He saw it in her eyes – Keiko was scared. Really scared.

He walked over to her and took her hand, then held onto it when she gasped and looked down at him. "It's okay," he said. "I'll protect you. I promised."

A long, slow creak came from somewhere nearby, echoing through the theater.

"What was that?" Keiko whispered.

"I don't know." Tsuwabuki looked around again, trying to think, trying to remember what Desire had said and what he could never really remember about that one time he'd just told Keiko about. Desire said they'd know where to find the roses, so . . . maybe he wasn't supposed to find one, but if he was, it'd be here.

Tsuwabuki walked down the aisle and toward the screen, still holding onto Keiko's hand. Her skin was cold. In all the movie clips he'd watched, the men had never said anything about the woman's skin, or anything like that. They'd just kissed.

Maybe this was what Utena and Anthy had meant when they said that you had to experience a lot of things to be an adult. Maybe he was back at that again, maybe he could learn what it meant to grow up after being a child for so, so long. He squeezed Keiko's hand, hoping she would think she'd be okay with him there, and continued toward the screen.

The pale, grey-white movie screen was a lot bigger up close. Tsuwabuki leaned up close to it, and pressed against it with his free hand. Something . . . seemed familiar about this. Somehow, he knew.

"It's here!" He looked up at Keiko, eyes wide. "I think it's here. It's got to be."

"You think. . . ?" Keiko looked up at the screen, her gaze going all the way to the top. "Do you think she'd make it that easy to find?"

"I don't think it's a she--"

The long, slow creak came again, louder this time, and Keiko's hand clenched around his. Tsuwabuki gritted his teeth and squeezed back. She was counting on him. Touga was too. He had to find the rose, had to get it.

When the creaking sound passed, he looked at her again. "I think the rose is behind the screen," he said, not sure how he knew, "so we have to cut the screen. That's the only way to get behind it." He started to head back toward the projection booth, then Keiko pulled him back. The look she gave him, he understood.

He didn't let go, and the two of them headed up to the booth.

A few moments later, they returned to the screen, armed with a pair of scissors and a small, sharp knife that looked like it was used for cutting food. They climbed up next to the screen, standing close to one corner.

Tsuwabuki took a deep breath, and let go of Keiko's hand, then pressed the knife's blade to the screen. The white material was springy, and harder than he'd thought it would be. He looked over at Keiko.

"This is it," he said, then pulled his arm back and slashed through the screen.

There was a creaking and breaking sound, and a long slash tore through the center of the theater. Winds whipped forth from it, and a long, low whistle came from the hole in the world as it began to suck away the room's air. The room creaked again, and started to shake.

Tsuwabuki spun, and saw stars through the hole, saw the hole ripping itself wider and wider. Cracks appeared, opening up off of the hole, breaking up the room into smaller pieces. He looked back to the screen, and saw the cut he'd made growing larger, pulling the screen farther open, tearing apart all along the way. The holes matched.

What had he done?

"Tsuwabuki!" Keiko shrieked.

She held onto the edge of the stairs that led up to the screen, her legs flying out behind her as the gaping hole tried to pull her into it. Tsuwabuki yelled, and reached for her hand, tried to grab it.

He caught her hand and pulled back, then realized that the room's pull was stronger than him, stronger than them both. No! He couldn't give up. He reached for the stair's railing, tried to get his other hand to it.

Keiko lost her grip, and screamed again as she was pulled toward the rip, her hair flying loose, her skirt flapping in the harsh winds. Tsuwabuki pulled again, grimacing as she squeezed his wrist so hard he thought the bones would break.

"Don't let go!" she cried. "Don't let go!"

"I. . . ." Tsuwabuki clenched his fist around the rail. "I won't!"

The rift opened wider, and Tsuwabuki saw the purple haze from the edges of Ohtori, all filled with stars. His eyes snapped open, and he gasped. What was out there? What would happen to them if they fell? What could–

His grip began to slip.

Keiko screamed once more, and Tsuwabuki braced his feet on the stairs, then nearly lost his step when the stairs crumbled beneath his feet. The room had no floor anymore, the rip had grown so large. He tried to hook his foot around the stair rail, but couldn't reach.

"Keiko! I don't know – I can't--"

Cracks spread up the wall. The rail broke free. And Tsuwabuki and Keiko tumbled into the abyss.

The last thing he saw before he tumbled into the rip in the world was a single white rose, spinning slowly in the blackness behind the screen.

Realizing that he'd come so close only to fall because he couldn't be a good enough big brother, Tsuwabuki cried out his pain and frustration as he tumbled into oblivion.

* * *

Somewhere across campus, Nanami heard Tsuwabuki scream.

* * *

Miki headed toward the music room with Kozue close behind him.

"You don't have to come with me," he said, though he knew she wouldn't listen. As always, she did what she wished, without concern for anyone else. In all his memories – years' worth, more than he should have ever lived – she had never changed. Not that he'd ever seen. She'd always played the darker twin, the needy younger sister, the cause of new and different kinds of trouble.

She'd hardly said a word at today's revelations. And what worried Miki the most was that she still wore that sharp, mocking smile.

"Of course I do," Kozue said, and Miki didn't need to look at her. By her voice, he knew what expression she wore. "There's someone from another world trying to get us, Miki. Do you want it to take me away?"

Another taunt. Miki stifled a sigh. "I don't think that you would go, Kozue," he said.

A quiet moment, and when she spoke again, she was so close that he felt her warm breath on the back of his neck.

"Would you rather it was someone else, dear brother?" Kozue whispered. "Would you rather have Marie here with you?" Her chuckle was just loud enough for him to hear and no one else.

Not that anyone else around paid them any attention, Miki thought, but all the same.

Miki stopped walking, then turned and frowned at her. "Why would you think that?"

"She's not your little Anthy anymore," Kozue said. "She's changed, you can see that, I know you can. Same with the girl who used to be Utena. Did you see them holding hands?" She leaned in still closer, her eyes never leaving his. "Would you steal her away? Either one of them? Or do you just want to watch--"

Miki stepped back, fighting back the heat rising in his face. "That's enough, Kozue," he managed, then started to walk again.

Kozue was right, of course. Miki remembered a time, a lifetime, when he'd joked that he might favor Utena, even to the point of saying that he would win a duel for her. It seemed strange to be so forward, but the memory was there; he couldn't deny it.

Likewise, he couldn't deny that things had changed. The Utena and Anthy he'd once known – and why he had memories of many lifetimes where Anthy was around but only one he could remember with Utena, he wasn't sure – had changed a great deal, not just in how they looked but in who they were. So much must have happened for them. Kara said she was seventeen, and by his memories, Miki had guessed that it had been that long since Utena and Anthy both had disappeared.

Seventeen years . . . and so long before. So much had happened, now that he remembered it all. Not that he wanted to remember it all, but there it was, in his head. And he couldn't have back the Anthy he'd once known.

That was how it was, he thought. He couldn't change that. He hoped that he didn't truly want to.

Miki and Kozue reached the empty music room, and walked inside. The three ascending arched windows let in daylight, casting their faintly distorted shadows across the glossy black floor. Miki took a deep breath, taking in the scents of paper and other oddities that were particular anywhere people carried and cared for their musical instruments.

Desire, whomever it was, had said that they would know where to find the roses. No place could have been more appropriate for him to find a rose than this.

Miki glanced behind him. Kozue stood in the doorway, one leg raised as though she posed for someone. He turned away. Even with no one to look at her, Kozue still acted like she was trying to tempt everyone who glanced her way.

He walked over to the piano, opened the top, and looked inside. No rose. Miki sighed. Perhaps that would have been too easy. But all the same . . . some said that music took you places that you couldn't go any other way. If Desire was some otherworldly being, then perhaps it would take going somewhere else to find the rose.

Miki sat down at the piano, and held his hands above the keys, and closed his eyes. He heard Kozue come closer, but paid her no mind. This time was his, and the rose would be his as well. He just had to find the right music for it.

Reflexively, he began to play 'The Sunlit Garden,' as he had so many times before. It seemed his hands found the melody without his aid, that they would play it without his thought. But it was not the right music for this. He stopped, then considered. Bach? No. Mozart, perhaps, or Handel. Music for the soul.

He put his hands to the keys again, and began to play 'The Sunlit Garden.'

Miki stopped all at once, the notes hard and dissonant, and realized how hard he was breathing. He hadn't meant to play that–

His hands began to play again, the song that he'd grown famous for, at least within Ohtori's bounds. He stopped himself once more, and pulled his hands away from the piano. Next to him, Kozue asked something, but he shushed her and squeezed his eyes shut. Something else. He had to play something else.

Miki forced his fingers through the first few bars of 'The Messiah,' before the notes changed of their own accord. When he opened his eyes, he found himself somewhere else.

A concert hall had grown around him when he wasn't looking, and Miki sat onstage, behind a grand piano fully the size of Ohtori's entire music room. Dwarfed by the instrument, he turned and looked at the crowd.

All gathered there wore black, turning the audience into a sea of night, save for the drama masks. Some wore masks of tragedy, others of comedy, and still others the warped mixed-face of both sides. He looked away, and found that the hall lay to his other side as well, an audience on both sides. Miki sat atop an island in the center of a masked-audience ocean.

He covered his face with his hands, and grabbed at his hair when his hands tried to force themselves toward the gargantuan keyboard. No. No, he couldn't play that, not again, not here, not at the center of the infinite crowd. He could do so much more, this kind of fame for one song and nothing else wasn't what he wanted–

The air grew cold, and the dull rumble of the crowd died away, replaced by the deep bass throb of an engine.

Miki remembered, and did not want to open his eyes.

He became aware of a nearby presence purely from its intoxicating scent, a smell of summers of his youth mixed with a faint but tantalizing hint of the sweat of erotic exertion. It was here. Desire was here.

Miki could no longer help himself, and opened his eyes.

He sat in the back of the red convertible that had belonged to Ends of the World, many years ago. The road went on forever before him, streetlights glowing yellow to either side. He looked up into the darkness, and saw cracks along its edges, though how he could find cracks in blackness he knew not.

The presence next to him stirred, and Miki looked. Desire lounged against the car's back seat, leaning on its side, clad in the same uniform Akio had worn when Miki had realized the purple-haired man was the one he'd known as Ends of the World. Desire's yellow eyes caught Miki's gaze and did not let go.

"Welcome," Desire said, the single word suggestion and temptation and delighted threat all at once, and Miki felt his face heat.

For a long moment, neither of them said anything, then Desire gave a long, slow blink, breaking the spell. It turned onto its back and stretched out, kicking its feet up onto the front seat. "I thought you'd be the first one here," it said.

Miki turned away, clenched his hands together in his lap. "Why – why's that?"

"I know boys like you," Desire said, not looking at him. "I know all the things you dream of, all the things you'd never admit to yourself. You're wound tighter than any instrument's strings, Miki. Relax."

Its hand touched his shoulder, and Miki tried to pull himself away. He couldn't. Its fingers stroked toward his neck. He started to take a deep breath, then caught Desire's scent again and stopped himself. Breathing through his mouth didn't help either; it came out too much like panting.

"So, an offer," Desire said. It didn't seem to care if he listened or not. "Come with me, leave the game, and you can have her back." It paused. "Either her."

"You were listening when I was talking to Kozue," Miki said, accusation clear in his voice. When Desire laughed, he turned and looked against his will, and what he saw froze him where he sat.

Desire had traded outfits, and now wore an Ohtori girls' uniform, and wore Anthy's signature curled hairstyle. Its hair was still black, its skin pure white, but everything else . . . just as Miki remembered her. Just as he had always imagined her.

A languid chuckle, and Desire's outfit shifted once more, swirling and growing into Utena's unique boys' uniform, all the way down to the tall red socks. Desire looked at him through long bangs that should have been pink, and it scratched his neck with the edge of a fingernail, sending an uncomfortable, exhilarating shiver through him.

"So which is it?"

"Anthy," Miki whispered, then turned away again, cursing at himself inside. Anthy was different now, she'd changed and moved on; she'd found someone to love who clearly loved her back. It wouldn't be right to look at her like this.

"Miki. . . ."

Anthy's voice. He'd missed it so.

"You're not her." Miki's voice came out strained and strangled, and he heard his own words and didn't believe them. Wouldn't it be easier, some part of him argued, to just let it go? To leave this all behind, and be happy with Anthy?

"I can be yours, Miki," Desire said in Anthy's voice. "It's all right. I'll be yours. Isn't that what you want?"

"You're not her," Miki said again, finding some small strength in the denial. "Anthy went away. She's Marie now."

"And you don't like that, do you." It wasn't a question.

Miki said nothing.

"You miss her," Desire continued, its voice becoming its own again. "You loved her for so long. She was the only girl who ever held your attention, the only one who played the piano with you since your sister stopped, the only girl you ever felt like you had something in common with. Spending forever with her . . . what could be better than that?"

Miki put his hands over his ears. His fingers twitched, and he realized they were still trying to play 'The Sunlit Garden.' He wrenched his eyes open, and saw the masked crowd on both sides of the endless road, their tragedy-comedy masks spinning on their faces, a thousand infinite spirals bound in place and in darkness.

"Let me go," Miki gasped. He turned to Desire-Anthy, and gasped as it leaned forward, moving ever closer to him. The smell of roses, always so familiar around Anthy, swept over him, mingling gently with Desire's own suggestive scent.

"You can have her forever," Desire said in Anthy's voice, looking at him through the familiar glasses, eyes haunting and eager. "She'll be yours, Miki. Yours. Don't you want that?"

The last of Miki's will shattered, and he whispered, "Yes."

The masked people along the road flipped backwards, glowing and growing wings of a hard-shelled beetle, their masks spiraling away into the distance, the people themselves forming larger whorls around the masks, until all flew off into the stars.

Desire, wearing its own form once again, leaned forward and placed a searing kiss on Miki's neck. When it whispered, Miki began to tremble. "So be it.

"And every time you take her, every time you please yourself upon her, you'll cry afterward, because it will feel like you've violated her, even if she's said yes. Because this is what you want."

Miki threw back his head and screamed as the car sped him into his trapped, infinite fantasy life.

* * *

The piano collapsed.

Kozue stepped back as the instrument fell in on itself in a tangle of wood and sprung cords and snapping legs and keys of ebony and ivory flipping into the air. When the dust cleared, only the lid remained unsullied, laying atop the pile of rubble, still glossy and pristine.

She looked at the top, at her own reflection there. A moment later, it changed, and the face she saw was not her own.

Kozue saw Miki, walking the yards and paths of Ohtori, Anthy clinging to his arm, her ever-present blissful smile firmly seated on her face. He looked content. Kozue heard his voice, screaming, screaming, never stopping.

He'd fallen to Desire, she realized. And what he'd been given, what he'd wanted, was not what he'd expected it to be.

She turned away, and heard Miki's voice scream her name one time before falling silent.

Kozue saw him again as she walked back to the tower at the center of campus, in any reflective surface she passed. Sometimes he pounded on windows or mirrors, as though trying to reach her from the other side; sometimes he stood there with Anthy and glared at Kozue as though his fall had been her fault.

No. She knew it couldn't be. He'd been too weak, he'd given in.

When Kozue reached the tower and returned to the highest room, she found a small gathering – Kara, Marie, and Juri, with Nanami at the center. It seemed she wasn't the only one who'd heard screams.

". . . and now I can't find him anywhere," Nanami finished as Kozue joined the others, leaning against one of the couches.

"You're sure it was him?" Juri asked, firm and practical as always. Kozue licked her bottom lip at a particularly delicious memory.

"Do you think I don't know his voice by now?" Nanami asked, one hand on her hip. "Of course it was him. And now – I don't know. Where could he go?"

"Maybe he's where Miki is," Kozue said. All the others, the strange newcomers included, turned to look at her.

"Miki fell today," Kozue continued, "and Desire caught him." She glanced down at the red stone floor, then looked away as soon as Miki's eyes met hers. "I can still see him. He's screaming too."

"Oh, no," Kara said, sounding more startled than angry. Next to her, Kozue saw the girl Marie clutch at her hand.

"So this is worse than we thought." Juri stood from where she sat, and turned to address them all. "We have to be more careful. The game's only started, and Desire's already ahead."

And that, Kozue thought, was more true for her than Juri could ever know.


	5. Chapter 4: Sweet, Short Life

A Duel for All the World: Chapter Four – Sweet, Short Life

Saionji never won.

He remembered long, long years spent here at Ohtori, never aging a day, never truly changing. Oh, things happened differently. Time moved in a kind of cycle that revolved around the duels, and when one cycle was over, another began, as though nothing else in the world could possibly matter.

Saionji knew now what had happened during all of those cycles. Whenever he, or anyone he knew, was involved in the duels for the Rose Bride, he was never the victor in the end. He would possess the Bride for some time, perhaps, or duel without a single win. The one in charge of all this, Ends of the World, seemed to take great delight in ruining Saionji's chances every single time.

Every. Single. Time.

And most of those times, he was handed his defeat by a smirking Touga, who all the while proclaimed himself to be Saionji's only friend. The childhood memories they shared, and what those memories did or didn't amount to, Saionji couldn't be sure. But every cycle turned out exactly the same.

It took all the strength and discipline that Saionji had fostered within himself not to strike the other man whenever he saw him. And now, now that so much had changed, now that their world was coming apart and they were forced to play one last game at the whim of some unknown being, Touga insisted on accompanying him again.

And they were not alone.

Saionji walked toward the kendo dojo, his steps measured and even, his wooden sword bouncing gently against his shoulder. He carried the sword everywhere now, a measure of security in this warped world. He didn't bother looking behind him, as he knew the measure of Touga's footsteps, and those of their third companion.

"Was it necessary?" Saionji asked.

Touga's soft chuckle was as irritating as ever. "Was what?"

As though he didn't know. "Bringing her along."

Kanae walked along at Touga's side, and never raised her eyes. The woman never spoke much, but she'd not said a word since they left the tower. How Touga had convinced her to come with them, Saionji could only guess. His first guess was that Touga had simply taken her by the arm and walked, and she'd let herself be brought along.

What had happened to her? Saionji had to wonder. She'd been at the tower longer than any of them, but she'd told them nothing. She must have known Ends of the World, or at least know him as the one who'd lived in the tower before Ohtori went wrong. But anytime someone tried to ask her, she changed the subject to something inane and domestic, or simply said nothing.

Saionji dismissed her from his thoughts. She wasn't important. Finding the roses that Desire had placed across campus, finding a way to beat that strange creature at this new game, that was all that mattered.

Despite his losses in all the previous games, Saionji found it easy to see himself the victor in this one. Whomever Ends of the World had truly been, he was clearly no longer in charge. And without him, Saionji's destiny was his own to decide.

He would rule Ohtori. And once he did, things would finally go right for him.

"You don't find it odd," Touga asked, "that Desire would give us such a chance to defeat it?"

Saionji glanced back at him through narrowed eyes. Touga looked infuriatingly casual, as always. Nothing seemed to bother him. Nothing . . . but his feelings for Utena, during that fateful cycle. Of all the times they'd played the duel game to its end, that had been the only time Touga had become so emotionally involved.

He considered this, and came to understand. Everything was a game to Touga, everyone was a piece on the board, to be manipulated or cast aside. Their supposed friendship was a lie. Saionji would be better off without him.

Once he ruled Ohtori, he would expel Touga from its borders, never to return. And that would be the end.

Touga clearly needed no response; he seemed fine with a one-sided conversation. "There's much about it we don't know. And the same could be said about the ones who claim to have been Utena and Anthy."

Saionji gave a short, bitter chuckle. "You haven't tried a thing with Kara, have you," he said. "She's not the girl you knew."

"She's had another life, and found another love," Touga said. If this bothered him even the smallest bit, he showed nothing of it. "We've all had too many pasts, Saionji. It's time to move on."

Saionji didn't believe a word of it.

In all the time they'd spent together, Touga had never simply given up on anything or anyone. Either he would learn that something was not worth pursuing, or he would win. Any defeat was a temporary setback. For Touga to claim that he wouldn't pursue Kara, if she was who she claimed to be . . . no.

Perhaps if he was lucky, Saionji thought, Kara would be Touga's downfall.

"I could say the same about Marie," Touga said, a faint hint of mockery in his voice.

Saionji turned and glared back at him. Sharp, bitter memories of his time with the Rose Bride filled Saionji's mind. He clenched his hand around his sword, finding some faint comfort in the familiar grip. A vision of beating that smirk off of Touga's face came and went, and Saionji took a deep breath to calm himself.

"It doesn't matter," Saionji said. "We need to move on, like you said. Besides, she's . . . not the Rose Bride. Anyone could tell that."

"Then who is she?" Touga asked.

It was a guileless question, but Saionji heard the bait all the same. "She's herself," he said, and walked in silence the rest of the way to the dojo.

The day that Ohtori's students lived over and over again, it seemed, did not involve kendo. The dojo remained exactly as he had left it, perfectly maintained, the floors waxed and all the equipment clean and in place. In some ways, he was forced to admit, it was perfect; a room where he could practice as much as he wished without worry or fear of damaging anything. Except perhaps himself, but that was the inherent risk in most things.

Saionji walked into the dojo, leaving Touga and Kanae at the door. The woman still had said nothing, and when Saionji looked at her, her blank eyes stared right through him. He felt a momentary wash of pity, then turned away. Whatever had been done to her, she was too far gone.

"In search of a rose again," Touga mused from the doorway. "Where do you expect it to be? There aren't many places to hide it in here."

Saionji ignored him. He looked through the practice weapons, the two swords on their stands before the altar, behind the banners that adorned the walls. Nothing. Not a single thing out of place, and not a single hiding place. Had he been wrong? Was he not supposed to find a rose? Desire had only shown five of them, and there were many others who now lived in the tower. . . .

"What would you do with the rose, if you found it?"

Saionji scowled back at him. "What would anyone do?" he asked, then resumed his search. "Fight the last duel. Rule Ohtori."

"Do you think it'd be that simple?" Touga continued when Saionji said nothing. "Few things here ever are. You remember the games, you remember how . . . complicated they could become."

"And what's your point?" Saionji snapped.

Touga laughed. "Only that you're working for nothing, doing all this for nothing, again. Do you really think you'll win?"

Touga was baiting him, Saionji knew. He took another deep breath, and focused on his search. Perhaps beneath the floorboards–

As Saionji looked down, he saw the boards begin to warp. He blinked. The boards straightened again, then swayed in the floor, moving back and forth beneath his feet. The sound of the ocean came from somewhere nearby.

What was this?

"I'm still not convinced," Touga said. The doorway still seemed stable, and Saionji struggled toward it as Touga spoke. "You fought for the Rose Bride harder than all of us, no matter what the prize. I think you still want her. Even if she calls herself Marie now."

"That's not true!" Saionji yelled. "She's not Anthy! And she'll never be mine, I saw that!"

Saionji cursed himself for revealing so much. The smile on Touga's face told him all he needed to know. He struggled toward the dojo's door, but the floor shook and wavered beneath his feet, growing oddly liquid. Saionji began to sink into the wood.

"So all you want," Touga said, "is a woman who'll be yours." He glanced down at Kanae. "Here."

Touga shoved Kanae into the dojo, and she fell with a splash into what was once the floor. Saionji shouted, and dove for her–

Darkness surrounded him, and the sound of waves. When Saionji opened his eyes, the blackness remained. The sound of a throbbing motor came from somewhere nearby, a deep undercurrent to the rush of the ocean.

Light and vision slowly returned. The first thing he saw was Kanae, leaning back in the front seat of a far too familiar car, her hands folded over her stomach, looking calm and comfortable for the first time. Her serene expression seemed so out of place with what he'd seen of her before, but at the same time, Saionji envied her that relief.

The being sitting next to him in the back of the car offered no such consolation.

"She's what you want, isn't she?" Desire asked. It wore the same red suit as before, only a slightly different shade to better match the car. Its perfectly sculpted black hair never moved, despite the high winds. It turned its cat-eyes on Saionji and smiled.

Saionji forced himself to frown, trying to hide the sudden dryness in his mouth. It took all his will to turn away. "She's not," he said.

"Honestly?" Desire laughed, rich and full and intoxicating, then turned a look of utter amusement on Saionji. "You can't lie to me. I know everything that's happened here."

"Who are you?" Saionji asked, his voice gone quiet.

Desire, its eyes still on his, said, "I am the one who created Ends of the World. I helped him create this world. And I can give you anything you want." Its eyes flicked toward Kanae for less than a blink. "Her. Power. Prestige. Victory and the life of a champion. There's no need to fight me."

Saionji let out a brief, cynical laugh. "I've already promised myself that I'll defeat you. Nothing you can say will change that. After I find that rose, I'll meet you at the arena. We'll see who wins then."

Desire leaned back in the seat opposite him, narrowing its eyes in a way Saionji found almost patronizing. "Sad."

"What is?"

"You're so eager to fight. So willing. And I'm sure if I asked you why, you'd say something like 'my ideals are worth fighting for,' am I right?" Desire's voice made it sound like it was only a word or two away from laughter.

"Ideals?" Saionji laughed again, louder this time. "No. I'm fighting for myself, because it's the only way I'll win."

"And that's all you want?" Desire asked. "To win?"

Saionji said "Yes" and the word was hardly out of his mouth before he realized he'd done something horribly wrong.

He'd said what he wanted. To Desire. The other being smiled, then leaned toward him, its scent setting Saionji's heart to a painful pounding. The heat from its breath on his neck sent shivers all across Saionji's flesh.

"So be it," Desire whispered in his ear, then kissed his earlobe, sucking it between its lips briefly before–

The car and the road and the sounds of the ocean disappeared all at once. The last thing he heard was Desire's mocking laughter, bringing with it the terrible knowledge that he'd made that last mistake himself and had no one else to blame.

Saionji found himself back at Ohtori, standing in one of the courtyards in the bright midday sun. He knew who he now was. Kendo team champion, student council president, engaged to the chairman's daughter, that lovely young woman clinging to his arm.

He had finally won.

And then, he saw the blank, forgetting faces of the other Ohtori students, Kanae among them, and realized that they would say the same things to him over and over, and never remember anything he had said, never remember his accomplishments, or see him as anything but today's hero.

No. He tried to scream, but all that came out of his mouth was bragging, and thanks to anyone who acknowledged his greatness. He tried to run, but the pressing crush of his admirers kept him from going anywhere. Kanae's grip on his arm tightened, and tightened again; she would never let go.

A mad laugh escaped him, then was gone. He'd lost again.

* * *

"Juri."

She knew the voice. Once, not as long ago as she wished, that voice alone would have set her heart racing and her mind fumbling as she tried to understand its effect on her. Now, Juri knew, and she understood, and her pulse scarcely twitched.

Juri turned halfway and looked at the other girl out of the corner of her eye. "Shiori."

Shiori stood next to the table on the second floor of the rooms at the top of the tower, and leaned against one of the chairs, folding her arms atop it. Her eyes gave the impression of being wide and innocent even when half-closed.

"Are you going out there?" Shiori asked.

Juri nodded once.

"Are you sure you should?"

Juri turned to fully face Shiori, and folded her arms before herself. This could take some time. "I am," Juri said. "I don't like this situation, and I'd rather change it than wait to see what happens."

"I don't know about that," Shiori said, a faint smile reaching her lips. Juri forced herself to look at Shiori's eyes instead. "Desire seems so strong, and . . . wouldn't it be easier, just to give in?"

Despite herself, Juri let out a quiet laugh. She leaned back against the wall next to the elevator with the rose pattern across its doors, and looked up at the ceiling.

It would be easier, true. It had been hard enough to resist Desire's charms, to not throw herself to the floor before it and pledge her undying servitude so long as she could remain in its presence. But . . . Juri recognized that feeling.

She remembered her time in the car from nowhere, along the road that supposedly led to the Ends of the World. She remembered the attitude of casual temptation, of assuming others' submission, of control no matter what purely by manipulation of base desires. Akio had excelled at that. Desire was the same.

And that, simply enough, was how Juri had known to resist. And facing a life under the thumb of another being of that sort was enough for her to want to rebel, to fight, to make sure it didn't happen.

"It would be easier," Juri said, still gazing up. "But I don't think I could live with myself if I took the easy route."

"Why would you put yourself through that?" Shiori asked, her gaze gaining something much like sympathy. She sounded so vulnerable and scared. . . .

Once, she knew, Juri would have done whatever she could to comfort Shiori, to run to her and run off anyone who dared to hurt her. Time after time with Ruka had shown her that, and likewise, had shown her why Shiori might not be worth fighting for. That last time . . . so much had happened, during the sequence of duels that Utena had been present for.

All the times before, and in the years of times since, things had not quite been the same. Juri shoved aside memories of when things had been different between her and Shiori, and looked at the girl as she was now.

If the old memories touched Shiori at all, she didn't show it; she acted as she always had. As Juri watched, Shiori left the chair and slowly walked toward her, holding her head down and her hands clasped before her. No matter the time or memory, Shiori always walked the same way.

Juri stayed still until Shiori reached her. "But you could have all that you want, Juri," Shiori said, her voice little more than a whisper. "I'd like that. Wouldn't you like that?"

"I don't know." A simple enough answer, but judging from the look on her face, not one enough for Shiori.

The other girl looked up at Juri, a surprising hardness around her eyes. It faded after a single blink, and the strange innocence returned. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised," she said, and gave Juri a faint smile. "You've always had everything you wanted. It's been easy to be you, hasn't it?"

"Everything?" Juri frowned, and took a step back, resisting the urge to reach for the locket under her shirt. "How can you say that? You did all that you could to take him from me. Even when you knew he wasn't the one I wanted."

There. The faint twitch, the tiniest crack in Shiori's guileless facade. She knew what Juri meant, even though they'd never talked about it before.

Suddenly coming into years and years of memories had been hard on all of them. Juri now knew what had happened during the time of the black roses, when Shiori had found the locket and the picture it contained, and how quickly Shiori's act had faded once she had something to hold over Juri's head.

That day before the window . . . Juri remembered Shiori's false touch, the suggestion that Shiori sympathized, followed by her gleeful praise of how beautiful Juri looked when she hurt the most.

Ever since then, ever since she remembered, it had become easier to think of Shiori differently. Now, as they stood so close, Juri looked down at her and tried to remember why she'd felt so much. Shiori was beautiful, yes, and had a delicate quality that could make people want to protect her. But knowing what lurked behind that mask changed everything.

"Knowing what I want," Juri said, "doesn't mean you're the one to provide it."

Undaunted, Shiori leaned closer, nearly enough to touch. Juri caught the scent of her perfume, something light with scarcely seductive undertones. "Then what do you want now?" she asked.

Juri put a hand on Shiori's shoulder, smiled at her, and gently pushed her away. "I don't know," she said. "Too much has happened for me to be sure anymore. But you remind me too much of Desire when you're like this. And no matter what I want, I don't think I want to tell you."

Shiori shoved past her and pushed the button for the elevator, for one of the lower floors. She still held her head down, though Juri knew that she would no longer be smiling. "I can't understand you," Shiori said. "After all we were, whether we remembered it or not. Can't we be like that again?"

Juri did reach for her locket this time, and pressed on it through her shirt, the cold metal somehow comforting against her skin. "I don't think we could," Juri said. "I know you too well now."

The elevator doors slid open, and Shiori stepped inside. She said nothing more as the doors closed behind her and the elevator descended. Juri watched the lights above the doors, and held her breath until the elevator was several floors down.

At least . . . that was over.

Juri undid the top two buttons of her shirt; she still wore the student council uniform, all those who'd been part of it still did. Her fingertips traced the top of a thin golden chain, and she tugged the locket free from its place against her. She ran her thumb over the rose design, then pushed.

_Click._

The locket swung open, and she stared for a moment at what lay within.

Perhaps, Juri thought, it was better this way.

Behind her, someone cleared their throat. Juri turned to see Nanami standing in the kitchen doorway. She tucked the locket back into her shirt and buttoned up again, and gave Nanami a smile she hoped showed how tired she was.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," Juri said, trying to sound neutral. Somehow, it wasn't that difficult.

Nanami gave her a long look, seeming to be considering quite a few things at once. It was a long moment before either of them said anything.

"I didn't know about you and her," Nanami said. "I never knew her, so I don't know if I should be surprised or not. But I wouldn't have guessed it about you." She paused, and Juri said nothing; she had the feeling Nanami wasn't quite finished.

"But that was what you meant, wasn't it, when you said that it would be easier if we could change who we loved?" Nanami asked. She turned away slightly, and ran a hand over her hair.

Juri watched her, thinking about how to reply. It seemed the sudden influx of years' worth of memories had taken its toll on Nanami. Perhaps more than any of the rest of them. In most of Juri's memories, Nanami filled a single and specific role, that of little sister to a very popular young man, playing at being his and acting like every girl in all the world was somehow a threat to him.

What must it have been like to play that role over and over without a single thought to things being otherwise? How could she have felt, Juri thought, when she realized that she'd been doing the same thing for so long, without ever being able to change?

"You want to change who you love?" Juri asked quietly.

"Can you?" Nanami shook her head, and let out a deep sigh. "I don't understand any of this. I don't know – was I like that? All the time? Did I really think of Touga like that, all the time?"

Juri nodded slowly. "Sometimes, it was cute, and he acted like he was just indulging a younger sibling. Other times . . . he took advantage of you, didn't he?"

Nanami bit her lip. Answer enough.

"I'm sorry," Juri said, then sighed. "We've all been toyed with, every one of us. No one came out of this without scars."

"It doesn't even make any sense." Nanami raised her head and looked at Juri, faint lines forming around her eyes as she scowled. "How could this happen? How could it go on for so long without us knowing anything about it, and why did we just suddenly – wake up and realize that we were all being stupid and forgetting things?"

Juri thought back, to the time just before Utena disappeared from her memories. All those on the student council – even Nanami had counted herself a member then, though not by the time the duels were over – had gathered at the platform a dozen floors below them. Juri herself had named them all duelists, not friends. And then . . . everything was gone, over; her next memory was of being in fencing and seeing Shiori there, waiting to be taught.

"It couldn't have been something natural," Juri said, half to herself. "Ends of the World was manipulating us. Always."

"And now it's happening again with someone new." Nanami sounded more annoyed than anything else now, as though she was tired of being played with. "Desire already has Miki, if Kozue's not lying."

"You think she might be?" Juri asked as she considered the possibility. Any one of them, now that she thought about it, could be working for Desire. Even Shiori, considering the conversation they'd just had.

Even Nanami. Juri said nothing more.

"I don't know," Nanami said with a dismissive gesture. "But she can deal with that herself. I have to find Tsuwabuki."

"I remember." The conversation yesterday, with Nanami and the others . . . it was hard to believe that one of them had fallen so fast – no. Three of them, if Kozue was telling the truth. When they'd all left the tower yesterday to seek out Desire's roses, Tsuwabuki had taken Keiko with him, for reasons Juri hadn't bothered to ask. If he was missing, the other girl likely was as well.

And Nanami seemed quite convinced that Tsuwabuki wasn't merely missing.

"I hope you can find him," Juri said. Just what he meant to Nanami, she wasn't sure, but she wouldn't wish the loss of someone cared for on anyone.

"I think I know where he went," Nanami said, her expression set. "I'll see if he's there, and if something's happened to him, I'll . . . I don't know."

Juri nodded. "I think sometimes it's better not to know. It keeps you from getting lost when what you know turns out to be a lie."

* * *

The elevator stopped when Nanami had descended only one floor, and when the doors opened, Kozue stood on the other side.

Nanami forced herself to not step back at the look on Kozue's face. The other girl looked positively dangerous, as though ready to take apart anything or anyone who stood in her way. Nanami said nothing, only stepped aside as Kozue entered the elevator. The doors closed, and the two of them stood in silence as they headed toward the ground floor.

When the doors opened again, Kozue looked at her. "Where are you going?"

"The theater," Nanami said. "That's where Tsuwabuki would have gone." She paused. "What about you?"

"The music room." Kozue raised a loosely clenched fist, then slowly put it to her heart. "I can't get Miki back. But I'll do whatever I have to, to get the rose."

Nanami opened her mouth to say something, but Kozue cut her off.

"Walk with me partway. We should stay together, in case something else happens."

Nanami had no argument and didn't want to disagree with Kozue in such a state, so she simply nodded, and the two of them walked out.

The early morning light made campus look pale and bleached, but students still walked everywhere, laughing and joking as they made their way toward classes. Nanami had gotten used to no one noticing her, so she paid them no mind.

Then, she felt eyes upon her, and heard unfamiliar yells of a familiar name, and paused to look. Beside her, Kozue stopped as well. They both stared.

Saionji stood at the center of a crowd of screaming girls, his back to Nanami and Kozue, exulting in the attention. He wore the student council presidents' uniform done in his colors, and held his wooden sword over one shoulder.

Nanami glanced at Kozue. Without a word, the two of them began to walk toward Saionji.

They pushed through the crowd without resistance. Once they were close, Nanami understood why she'd felt someone staring at her. Kanae stood at Saionji's side, clinging to his arm, looking like there was nowhere else in the world she'd rather be. She closed her eyes as she saw Nanami looking at her.

Except. . . .

Now that she was closer, Nanami saw the faint hints of panic and fear around Saionji's eyes, heard the strain in his laughter. Everyone loved him, it seemed, but he looked on the verge of a breakdown. Nanami understood – he'd given in, and Desire had given him what he wanted, or what he thought he wanted, and now he couldn't escape it.

Nanami glanced at Kozue again, and saw no pity there. A faint, shy voice reached her, and she looked; her eyes met Kanae's again.

"_All I ever wanted,_" Kanae whispered, "_was for someone to love me and only me._"

It seemed she had what she wanted as well.

* * *

"This isn't working, isn't it?"

Kara and Marie lay on the unusual bed in the room that was once theirs, the room they'd shared when Ohtori had been their home. When Kara and Marie discovered the room, they'd found it untouched. It seemed that no one had even gone inside since they'd all come to the tower. So it posed no problem for the two of them to claim it as their own.

Kara held her hand out toward Marie, and the other girl took it, the gesture familiar and heartening. Starlight floated in through the partly open blinds, through the great arched window that took up most of one wall. Marie's eyes seemed bright even in the dim light.

"What isn't working, Katherine?" Marie asked.

"We've been here a day," Kara said. "Maybe less. Time seems . . . strange, I don't even know what time it was when we came here."

"Akio controlled even the time of this place." Marie looked distant for a moment. "Perhaps with him gone, time here fluctuates."

Kara nodded. That would make sense. "But we've already lost Miki, same with Tsuwabuki." She frowned. "It doesn't feel like I'm doing that good at being the prince."

Marie focused on her again. "Even the prince can't save everyone. And some people may be too willing to fall."

Kara's frown remained. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know for sure," Marie said after a moment, "but wouldn't it make sense for Desire to have been here before, to not start this new game unless it already had someone on its side?"

"Maybe," Kara said, then sighed. "You'd know Desire better than I would. I only met it once before today."

"Desire. . . ." Marie began. She trailed off, then looked into Kara's eyes. "Desire will make you want something you don't have, and make you hurt to get it. If it ever lets you have what you want. My lord . . . I never knew him to speak favorably of Desire."

"Can't imagine why," Kara said. "Family gatherings with them must be all kinds of fun."

"But I think that's it." Marie gently stroked her fingertips over Kara's palm, drawing her attention. "Desire must want you to doubt yourself. Without you, none of the others would have resisted Desire. Not as strongly, not as easily. And if Desire can make you think you can't be the prince, then it's already won."

Kara sneered, then turned it into a grin. "That's not going to happen." She squeezed Marie's hand. "What would I do without you?"

"Grow old, wither, and die," Marie said, looking very self-assured.

Kara laughed, unable to help herself. She then looked at Marie and said, "You know, I don't really like this bed."

"Oh?" Marie asked, her eyes widening. "Why's that?"

"You're too far away."

Marie rose and crawled into Kara's half of the bed, and Kara pulled the cover over them both. Sleep found them soon.


	6. Chapter 5: Hearts Like Ours

A Duel for All the World: Chapter Five - Hearts Like Ours

Kozue left Nanami behind and walked toward the music room. She didn't bother with any words of parting; either Nanami would survive her own meeting with Desire or she wouldn't. Kozue found that she didn't care either way.

Except–

Too many had lost the game so far. Tsuwabuki and Keiko had disappeared, and while Kozue hadn't expected anything from them, to know they fell so quickly wasn't a good sign. And now, Saionji and Kanae as well.

And Miki.

Perhaps she should have known. Miki had always been too friendly, too willing to believe the best of others. She'd tried to break him of that . . . she'd tried to break him of a lot of things. Trust. Faith. The belief that other people would do what was right for the two of them. But Miki held to his innocence through it all.

She remembered her childhood, the time when their parents had forced her to play the piano without him, the recital when he'd been sick and she'd had to show the world that she couldn't truly play. She'd learned much that day. The world was a cold and cruel place, and the only way to survive was to bite right back.

There were, of course, advantages to her way of doing things. She never had to lie, because she didn't care what others thought about what she said or did. She could be completely open with her emotions, because there was no need to worry about what might happen. Knowing that she would get hurt let her indulge herself before the pain came.

But this was different.

No one was allowed to take Miki from her. No matter who or what Desire was, no matter what it could do or whatever claim it had on Ohtori, no matter how it could give Ohtori to whoever won this new game, Kozue did not care. Desire had done something bad to Miki and so it would suffer, and that was the only thing that mattered.

Faint music came from up ahead. She recognized the tune, of course; Miki played 'The Sunlit Garden' whenever he was alone, or whenever he thought no one was watching. He'd never known she was watching unless she'd wanted him to. But someone was playing it now, and playing it well.

The image of Desire sitting at Miki's piano, playing just as he had, came to Kozue's mind, and she walked faster. Her cheeks grew warm. That song belonged to she and Miki, no one else.

The closer she got to the music room, the louder the music became; by the time she walked up the stairs she had to hold her hands over her ears to keep the sound from overwhelming her. Each note seemed to press against her skin, painfully intimate and somehow – wrong. The song was about innocence, about a time left behind. Kozue had always thought that what the song truly represented was a moment that couldn't be recaptured.

But with that same song becoming something just short of a physical force, pushing her away at the same time as it caressed her, rasping and whispering in her ears, quiet and deafening at the same time . . . it seemed corrupt.

Miki never would have played it like this.

When Kozue reached the music room, she saw that the piano was intact again, as though it had never fallen to pieces. The keys moved on their own. She walked inside, and the music fell to a more tolerable level. The song never stopped.

Kozue walked to the piano and peered inside. The tense metal strings quivered with each note, the hammers pounded away of their own will. She saw no rose. Maybe Miki had been wrong.

She thought about it and realized that no one had found a rose yet. Not that she knew of. Since the game began, there had been little time for talk among them. Meeting Nanami in the elevator, talking to some of them once she returned with news of Miki, that had been all. So others could have been lost . . . or others could have been successful.

Kozue narrowed her eyes and reminded herself that it didn't matter. Right here, right now, this was about the being who stole her brother.

She walked to the front of the piano and stared down at it. Miki's eyes met hers, reflected in the glossy black finish of the upraised lid. He was still screaming. Kozue frowned at him, wondered what he was going through that made him panic so, wondered if he could in fact see her.

Kozue knelt, and picked up the piano bench by two of its legs. When she stood again and looked at the reflection, Miki's screams had stopped. He looked her in the eyes, and she knew. He could see her. He knew what she planned.

And when he nodded, Kozue smiled.

"You couldn't do this," Kozue whispered. "You always were a coward."

She hefted the bench and turned and swung it with all her strength, sending it crashing into the keys. Another swing, over her head this time, and the board beneath the keys gave out, splintering down its center and sending ebony and ivory scattering.

Kozue wound up and swung again, bringing the bench down onto the top of the piano, once, twice, three times until she broke through the lid, and both sides of it clattered to the floor. She jammed the bench into the piano's insides, sending up a twanging cacophony as wires snapped and pinged and flung their broken ends into the air.

The piano's sounding board went next, cracks like lightning splitting all through it. Kozue brought the bench down into the piano over and over again, until the entire thing was broken through; it collapsed in on itself, sending up a cloud of dust and splinters.

Standing there alone in the middle of the music room, covered in sweat and sawdust, bleeding from tiny cuts the flying wires had inflicted upon her, Kozue looked down at what she had done. The bench, battered and broken, hung limply from her hands.

Somehow, the frame where the keyboard had sat remained standing, crooked and with only a few keys remaining, but still there all the same. On a strange, faint impulse, Kozue dropped the bench down before the frame, and sat down on the torn cloth seat.

She put her hands to the keys, and began to tap out the notes, only hitting three keys as all the others were broken. Not a sound came from the piano's remains, but as she pretended to play, three of the thin metal cords pulled themselves out of the wreckage. The wires held a single red rose, winding around its stem.

Kozue closed her eyes and continued to play. Soon, the sound of her fingers tapping against the broken wood was overcome by the rumble of a throbbing motor, and a familiar, cold wind blew through her hair, and the seat below her was no longer ripped, and she sat in the back of a sleek red convertible driving down an endless road.

And she was not alone.

"I should have known it would be you," Desire said. It lay in the front passenger seat, reclined so far back that its head was nearly in Kozue's lap.

Kozue looked down at Desire, her eyes half-closed, and said nothing. She folded her hands in her lap, and stared off into the darkness, watching the lights pass, and pass, and pass. It was just as she remembered. The road went nowhere.

They rode in silence for a while. Desire folded its arms behind its head, looking completely comfortable. Kozue glanced at it, saw its eyes open to meet hers. A curiously foreign sense of need washed over her. She thought of her brother, and ignored it, recognizing that it wasn't her want.

At that moment, she understood: all Desire wanted was for them to give in, to say what they wanted so it could pretend to give it to them. Kozue had seen enough with what happened to Miki and Saionji both. Whatever they'd asked for, whatever they'd wanted, Desire gave it to them in a way that they'd regret for the rest of their lives, whatever those lives might be now. So no matter what she wanted, Kozue knew that Desire wouldn't really give it to her. It was all part of the game.

Others had lost. Miki had lost. Kozue would not.

Desire turned over on the seat, laying on its stomach and looking at her, kicking up its feet in an oddly childlike fashion. A glimmer of color bloomed forth from the surrounding darkness, and Kozue watched as new images formed.

The house where she and Miki had grown up. The garden with the piano, where all things started. A childhood spent with her brother, the two of them rarely separated. Dressing alike for childrens' festivals, adults fawning over them, all the little joys of having a twin.

Kozue turned away and looked Desire in the eye again. No false sensation came. She said nothing.

"Not a word?" Desire asked, its tone taunting. "I've watched you for a long time. You know what you want, and I admire that. But I don't think you understand what I could give you."

Desire gestured toward the images that surrounded the road, its every movement fluid and flawless, every motion a tiny temptation. Kozue kept her eyes straight ahead.

Though they'd said little about it, Kozue knew that all the others who'd gathered in the tower had memories of dozens of lives, time after time of playing the dueling game and fighting for the girl and the power it was said she held. Kozue herself had worn rose and ring during some of those games, picked up a sword and dueled, always despite Miki's protests and – during one painfully clear life – with Miki's own sword.

But in all of those lives, all of those duels, Kozue had never gained anything, even in those times when the Bride became hers. If there truly had been a power to revolutionize the world, she'd seen nothing of it. And no matter what life she lived, things always began the same. Her past with Miki would never change. They would never have those days in the garden back.

Perhaps Miki had known this, and that was why he constantly played the song, knowing that the past was set but still hoping for a way to bring it back. Maybe that was why he never stopped playing the piano.

"You could have it all back," Desire said, "all your life to live again. You could fix your mistakes. You could make it so you and your brother never grew apart." It gestured once more to the passing images. "It could be like this again."

Kozue looked this time, saw Desire pointing toward an image of Kozue and Miki, children, holding hands, hugging each other. She looked back.

"You're too late," she said. "And I don't want to change the past."

The forward motion ceased all at once, and Kozue snapped to her feet, barely keeping her balance as the piano bench collapsed beneath her. She stood in the music room once again, holding the red rose in her hand. Its thorny stem was still bound in piano wire.

Kozue looked down at the wreckage, saw herself reflected dozens of times in the sleek blackness, and walked away.

* * *

Juri walked with Shiori one step behind her toward the burnt remains of Nemuro Memorial Hall.

It wasn't often that Juri did things without knowing why. She'd joined the fencing team because she enjoyed the sport and wanted to become stronger. She'd told no one of her feelings for Shiori because she knew it would only cause pain to everyone who was involved. She'd fought in the duels, every time, because she wanted to prove that there was no power to revolutionize the world.

Now. . . .

Juri remembered what she and Nanami said, about not knowing. So much had changed. Doing something without knowing why seemed so much easier now.

She turned her head partway and looked back at Shiori with one eye. "Why did you come with me?"

Shiori peered at her, seeming surprised by the question. Juri wondered if it was another act. Out of all of them, Shiori seemed the least bothered by what had happened. All she'd done was stay around, quietly, and approach Juri once in a while with the seeming intent of being friends again, always with the subtle suggestion of something more.

Something more. Juri held herself expressionless at the thought. 'More' had indeed happened, in all the years gone by. And not only with Shiori.

"You seem to know where to look, Juri," Shiori said, and gave her a too-familiar smile. "I wouldn't know where to start."

Juri took a deep breath and looked away. Some things weren't easy to leave behind, especially when they wouldn't leave you alone. Not having Shiori around would make many things easier.

A few more minutes of walking, and Nemuro's charred husk stood before them. The orange light of sunset made the place look as though it still burned. Juri gazed up to the broken windows, to the bits of shattered glass reflecting the dying light, and remembered what had happened here. Something before her time, something that killed a hundred boys said to be looking for the power to revolutionize the world.

Had they found it?

Behind her, Shiori made a small noise, and Juri looked. The other girl looked positively terrified, and stepped back.

"You didn't say we were going here," Shiori said.

Juri clenched her jaw, holding back old protective instincts. Shiori had come of her own will, she could leave of it too. Even if it might get her caught by Desire. "You didn't ask," Juri said, and started toward the door.

"But don't you remember?"

Juri paused, and looked back again. Shiori stood with her hands folded before her, held just below her chin, her eyes cast downward. Juri waited for her to speak.

"When I found your locket . . . I came here." Shiori almost looked ashamed. "I remember. I came here, and there were signs that said to go to the elevators. I didn't understand what was happening, but I told someone – I told someone everything. About you, about him, about all of us.

"And then. . . ." Shiori's met hers; she was near tears. "And then I came to find you."

"I do remember," Juri said, no trace of pity in her voice. "And I remember what you told me when you came to me." She paused. "Come with me or don't. It's your choice." She turned and opened the doors.

When Juri opened the doors, the hall as it had once been lay before her, a strange yellow cast over everything, like an old photograph. She heard discussion in the distance, and the sound of something heavy rolling along the floor, but saw no one. The lobby's walls were covered with framed photographs, and a long hallway with chairs on both sides headed off into the darkness.

Juri walked inside, and Shiori followed.

The photos on the wall showed some familiar faces; Juri recognized Kozue and Keiko, as well as Kanae. Shiori's picture hung among them, though Juri let her eyes skip over it. The images seemed to go back many, many years. Somehow, it seemed appropriate. The only place on all of campus where anyone remembered anything had burned down years ago.

When Juri reached the door, she saw a sign hanging from the doorknob, reading 'please come inside.' She paused. An open invitation? Likewise, it seemed appropriate. Desire could be waiting for her on the other side, but that was what she was here for, wasn't it? Juri took a deep breath and opened the door.

A long hallway stretched out before her, framed mirrors of all shapes and sizes adorning the walls. She couldn't see where the light came from, but the mirrors caught everything and reflected it, making the hallway seem well-lit. The walls bore a patina of age and smoke.

Juri walked inside, Shiori still behind her, and caught glimpses of her reflections in the mirrors. After passing a few, Juri realized what was happening: the mirrors showed her as she once was, or as she was not right now.

One mirror showed her in her fencing jacket, another in her old school uniform, her hair uncurled. Still others showed her as a child or as a stern-faced old woman with her hair gone steely grey. In all of them, her reflection looked back at her, and followed her as she walked.

This was the right place to come, Juri thought. She hadn't asked any of the others what they truly thought about having so many memories, or what they thought of all the lives they'd lived. Despite having so many people in the tower, she'd found it easy to have time alone when she needed it. And she had come to her own conclusions.

When Juri reached the end of the hall, only a blank wall stood before her. Two mirrors hung from the walls to either side, full-length, showing her as she was right now, with one small change. On the wall to her right, the mirror showed her with a white rose on her chest; the one to the left, a black rose. She looked at each of them in turn, searching her own face for clues. Not a one. The mirrors seemed to genuinely be her, save for the rose.

Without looking over her shoulder, she asked Shiori, "What do you see?"

"Nothing," Shiori said in little more than a whisper. "The mirrors don't show me. What do you see, Juri?"

A black-and-white choice. Juri looked at her mirrored selves, and understood.

She turned and faced the her with the white rose. "An answer," she said. She held out her hand, reached for the mirror, then spun on one heel and pressed her hand into the other mirror. The reflection's surprise was not her own, and Juri snatched the black rose from within the mirror's depths.

"You aren't playing along very well."

That voice. Juri felt a sudden sweat, and wiped it away. "And who said," she mused, "that I had to play by your rules?"

A faint but uncomfortably familiar rumbling sound came from all around her, and Juri found herself sitting upon the plush white leather seats of a sleek but uncomfortably familiar automobile. She sat in the back seat, the wind tugging at her curls, Shiori sat beside her in a pose meant to be fetching, her legs up on the seat.

The road flashed by beneath the car's wheels, almost impossibly fast, the single line down the center the only bright spot in all of it. On either side of the road, flashes and flares of white light burst forth from the darkness from time to time, breaking the endless blackness. Juri watched for a moment, saw no pattern, and wondered what the point of it all was. Such a show . . . it made the whole thing feel so hollow, empty.

Desire sat in the front passenger seat, reclined, leaning its head back to gaze at the two of them. "I'll have to stop underestimating you," it said, amusement gleaming in its eyes. "You're the second one who's not played along like I thought you would."

"Stranger things have happened," Juri said. She peered into the rose's black depths, and found that Desire's presence, its indescribable scent, bothered her not at all. She pinned the rose to her pocket, and leaned back in the seat. "Will this take long?"

"I can make it quick," Desire said. Its tone had shifted from honey to vinegar. "I don't understand you. I've seen you, I know what's happened to you, and I know what you want. But you took the black rose. A chance for purity and newness, and you take the black." It paused. "Why?"

"Why?"

They rode along in silence for a few long moments. Juri felt fingertips tracing along her thigh, barely brushing her. She opened her eyes and saw Shiori leaning closer to her, a shyness and need in her eyes. Juri sighed, then gently moved Shiori's hand away and closed her eyes again.

"Because you don't have anything I want," Juri said. "I've been thinking. I've been remembering. I don't know what Ohtori is, or how long it's been around. But I know that I've been alive for a long time." Juri smiled, barely. "I'm over a hundred years old. But I haven't aged a day. Maybe not ever. I remember being young, but between those few memories and my days at Ohtori . . . there's nothing."

Desire said nothing, but there was a sharpness to the silence, like broken glass just waiting for someone to walk along and cut themselves. Juri opened her eyes and stared at the darkness above, at the brief flashes of white light, rarer now than when the ride began. She ran her fingertips over the rose's soft petals and continued.

"I think I should be dead by now. But I'm not. No one is. I'm not even sure about the girl who should be here, the one who was Utena's best friend. Nobody even mentioned her. I don't know what happened to her. But I saw her picture in the hall, so she must have worn a ring, sometime back then.

"So I don't know what this place is, but something about it is . . . eternal. And with everything that's happened, I don't want eternity. I never did. But all I want is this place to be over, to move on, to see what happens next.

"And I don't think you can do that. You can't, or else you wouldn't be offering Ohtori as a prize." She looked at Desire. "Am I wrong?"

Desire's eyes narrowed, its slitted pupils little more than fine black lines. "You've suffered for so long," it said. "I could give you an end to that. Isn't that what you want?" As though on cue, Shiori reached for Juri's leg again, her strokes less subtle this time. "Or was your talk about changing who you love--"

"So you did hear that," Juri interrupted. "I can't say I'm surprised." She shook her head once. "No. I don't know if I can change that."

Juri reached down and took Shiori's hand, looked into the other girl's eyes as she raised it to her lips. She kissed the back of Shiori's hand once, gently, then let go. Shiori drew her hand back, confusion dawning on her face.

"But I can let my love go." Juri pulled her locket from beneath her shirt. She opened it to show Desire that it held nothing. No picture lay within. "I think we're done. Let me out."

And then she stood before the burned-out ruin of Nemuro Memorial Hall again, the black rose still pinned to her shirt. Shiori was nowhere to be seen.

Juri rubbed a rose petal between two fingers and sighed. Above, the first stars were coming out. She began to walk back to the tower.

* * *

Juri heard conversation when she returned to the rooms at the top of the tower, but she didn't join in. After all that had happened, she needed to clear her head, and so she headed for the shower. When she arrived, she realized she was not alone.

Kozue stood there, in the center of the large circular chamber with shower heads jutting out at many different points. All the showers were on, leaving the other girl standing at the center of a personal waterfall. Her back was to Juri, and if Kozue knew she was there, she gave no indication.

Juri paused, then approached. Doubtless Kozue remembered the same thing as she did. Better to get this over with swiftly, so that they could both move past it. That had been the point of today, hadn't it?

As soon as Juri walked into the shower, Kozue turned. Her hair seemed quite different, wet and slicked back, but the look in her eyes could not be mistaken. The fierceness Juri knew lived within her was still there; if anything, it seemed greater than usual. Juri held her gaze for some time.

Kozue was the first to break the gaze, only to turn the showers off. She turned to face Juri, showing neither shyness nor shame. "Hello, Juri," she said. "You have one of the roses, don't you?"

Juri nodded. "How could you tell?"

"I can tell." Kozue pushed back a rogue lock of hair that threatened to fall over her eyes. "What did Desire offer you?"

"Love," Juri said, then continued when Kozue began to look surprised. "It said that I could have someone I loved, someone I've loved for a long time." She smiled sadly. "But in the end, I realized that wasn't what I wanted. No. I knew that before I met Desire today, before this all started."

Kozue seemed to consider this, then asked, "So. What color is your rose?"

"Black." Juri paused. "You have one too. Desire said that I was the second one it hadn't been able to predict. Blue?"

"Red," Kozue said. She held up her hand, showing Juri a half-dozen fresh cuts from thorns or something else small and sharp. "Desire didn't have anything I wanted either."

"I think I see," Juri said. "You want your brother back, don't you? And he already lost this game."

"Mostly," Kozue said. Juri didn't ask what Kozue was answering. "So it's you and me." She gave Juri an overly-familiar smile that held absolutely no mirth or joy. "And three others. Who do you think will win?"

Juri shook her head. "I'm not guessing at that. Let them figure it out for themselves." She glanced around at the stopped showers, and walked into the circular room. "Could you turn those back on? I feel like I need to be clean again. I'm sure you understand."

Kozue reached over and turned the showers back on, her eyes never leaving Juri's. A moment later, the water and steam provided some small measure of privacy, and Juri began to wash herself. The soothing heat helped loosen her tense muscles, and she felt herself began to relax for the first time in days, perhaps weeks.

She'd done her part. She'd won her game. And in time, this all would come to an end.

Kozue's touch on the small of her back came from nowhere, and Juri started, then nearly cried out when the other girl's hand fastened around her neck.

"Kozue!" Juri yelled.

The showers turned off again. When Kozue spoke, her voice was low and threatening, filled with a fierceness Juri hadn't known in years.

"How can I trust you?" Kozue hissed. "You could be Desire's toy, just as anyone else. It could have given you the rose on purpose, just so you'd lose your duel at the end."

Juri reached back quickly and caught the hand Kozue held against her back, then twisted herself around, freeing herself as she clenched Kozue's wrist tightly. "And what makes you think," she said, trying to keep her voice steady, "that I'd betray you?"

"Isn't that how the duel game works?" Kozue nearly snarled, struggling against Juri; she tried to reach for Juri's neck again but Juri snatched that hand as well, leaving the two of them pushing against each other. Feet slid on the slick floor, and Kozue fought to keep her balance. Juri held back just enough to keep either of them from falling.

"This will be the last duel," Juri said. Her eyes met Kozue's. "I took the black rose because I want this to end. All of it. I don't know what will happen, I just don't want to be part of this anymore. That's all. I want to be done with Ohtori."

Kozue stopped struggling, and Juri slowly let her go as the other girl looked away, looked down at the tiled floor. It was a long moment before she spoke.

"Before I took the rose," Kozue said quietly, "whenever I looked at something that could show a reflection, I didn't see me. I saw Miki. And until I destroyed the piano, he was always screaming."

Juri sighed. "I'm sorry," she said. "I know you two were close. I suppose you couldn't help it, being twins."

"It's more than that." Kozue looked back up at her, their eyes meeting again. "Nanami and I saw Saionji. He lost. He's out there, somewhere, the center of attention, Kanae clinging to him. But you can see it in his eyes. He knows he lost, but he's stuck with it, he can't do anything about it.

"That's why I have to be sure you won't betray me," Kozue continued. Her voice grew hard. "I have to know that you'll fight. Because if we lose, we'll be stuck here. Just like that. Forever."

Juri took a deep breath as she took this in. Kozue sounded deathly serious. If all that she said was true, a fate that actually was worse than anything she'd known so far awaited her. Spending eternity pining over Shiori . . . no. "I'm on your side," Juri said. "Until the end."

"Good."

Kozue turned away, then completed the circle and faced Juri again, reached out and put her hands on the sides of Juri's face, then pulled her down for a kiss. Juri struggled for a moment, memories flooding over her, then returned the kiss, flicking her tongue at Kozue's lips as she pulled the other woman's body close to hers, their wet skin slipping against each other.

A long moment later, Kozue broke the kiss and walked away.

"What . . . what was that for?" Juri managed. She looked to see Kozue standing in the shower's doorway, an odd mix of desire and nostalgia on her face.

"Old times," Kozue said. "Goodnight, Juri." She smiled. "Sleep well."


	7. Chapter 6: The Sun you See is Me

A Duel for All the World: Chapter Six – The Sun you See is Me

Nanami followed the sound of Tsuwabuki's screaming across campus. The screams grew fainter as she got closer to the theater, and when she reached what remained of that place, they faded to silence. She looked inside and began to understand.

The theater lay broken, a ragged hole in its center criss-crossed with boards from the shattered ceiling. Below the hole, nothing but star-specked darkness, matching the void that ate away at the edges of campus.

Nanami gripped the door's frame and steadied herself, then called out, "Tsuwabuki?" She felt her hand move into position to snap, then stopped herself. He wasn't her servant. She hadn't thought of him that way for quite some time.

Then what was he?

He was . . . unlike anyone else. Keiko and the other girls had only wanted to be around her because of her brother, because of the status it would give them and because they thought they might have a chance with him. Nanami shook her head, not sure who she was upset with. There was once a time when she would have chastised them severely for even daring to think anything romantic about her brother. Now, it hardly seemed to matter.

But Tsuwabuki had only wanted to be with her, for the sake of doing so. He had a big-brother complex, but . . . it wasn't as though any of them were free of problems. She knew that well.

Old memories threatened to intrude, and Nanami shook them away. She was here to rescue Tsuwabuki and find the rose.

She looked into the theater again, to the ragged tear in the screen, and raised her eyebrows. The rose lay behind the screen, slowly spinning in midair, in blackness. He'd come so close, only to fall.

And why had he fallen? He'd come here with Keiko, from what she'd heard from Kara. Could Keiko have been working for Desire? Could she have been the reason? Nanami frowned, then paused. No. That didn't make sense. Keiko had hardly been able to unclench herself from Touga since they'd all gathered here. Her brother, Nanami thought, hadn't done a thing to discourage the girl. So the only way Keiko would have come here with Tsuwabuki would have been. . . .

Either Touga had been with them, or he'd told Keiko to go with Tsuwabuki.

Nanami dismissed the notion. Touga might not be all that she'd once thought he was, but he wouldn't get someone killed just for Desire's game. And she didn't even have any proof that Tsuwabuki was dead. She would get the rose, then see if she could find any sign of him.

She stepped into the ruined theater, slowly made her way down the stairs, and put one foot upon the boards that crossed the gaping hole. They seemed stable, somehow, and she started across, ready to turn and run at any moment if something shifted wrong or creaked too much underfoot.

When she reached the other side, Nanami lifted herself onto the stage. She moved to take the rose, then stopped. This was probably what Tsuwabuki had done right before he fell. Nanami looked around, wary. Seeing no threats, she took a firm hold of the torn screen with one hand, then put her other hand into the darkness on the other side.

The rose fell into her hand as soon as she touched it, and when she wrapped her hand around the stem, no thorns cut her. Nanami looked down at the white rose, wondering what would happen now. Shouldn't there be something more? From what she'd seen of Desire, she could guess it wouldn't just let her have the rose without some kind of fight, or some kind of game–

Nanami felt something change behind her, unsure of how, and turned.

She now stood in the doorway of her own bedroom, just as she'd left it, before she'd joined the others at the tower. Except. . . . Nanami began to walk toward her bed, hoping the things she saw scattered across it weren't what she thought they were.

She was wrong. Dozens of pictures of her and Touga, from all their years growing up, lay upon the bed, tossed about haphazardly, as though she'd been looking through them and had just left a moment ago. She bent to pick one up, realized she still held the rose, and tucked it into a pocket.

Years of memories nearly overcame her as she looked through the pictures. With every image, she recalled something new, some time they had shared, a moment that belonged only to the two of them. The pictures lay out the passage of time so clearly, and she put them in order, flipping through from when she was little more than a toddler until the days when she entered her current grade in Ohtori.

Touga appeared in the pictures less and less as she went through them, and stood farther and farther away from her. All of this seemed so long ago . . . so much had changed since then. They'd both grown up and, she admitted, they'd grown apart.

"Why," Nanami whispered. Why were these still out? She remembered so much now, so many things that didn't fit with these old memories. She knew different lives, going through the same thing many times with tiny differences. . . . In some of those memories, she and her brother scarcely spoke, in others, they were close, some might say too close. But no matter what, he was still her brother, one way or another.

She remembered . . . there had been a time when she'd thought otherwise. When Touga said that they weren't truly related. In another memory, he told her when they were very young that their parents had adopted them both, because their birth parents had both died. She'd been happier then, with parents who wanted her and a true brother who loved her.

How much of it was true, she couldn't be sure now.

Something caught Nanami's eye, and she glanced back toward the doors. They now stood closed, and in front of them, her yellow and black uniform stood by itself as though occupied. Nanami had the strange feeling that it was looking at her. She shuffled the pictures back together, lay them on the bed in a pile, and stood to face it.

"This is your idea of the game?" Nanami scoffed, doing her best to sound completely unimpressed. Never show your enemies your true face; that was something her time at Ohtori had taught her.

The uniform began to walk toward her, empty sleeves held out, blank footprints appearing on the carpet as it approached. Nanami blinked, then held up her hands to hold it back as it neared her.

"Nanami."

That voice. She knew that voice. Nanami looked over from the near-fight with her uniform to see Touga standing in her bedroom's corner, his uniform shirt half-open, giving her the smile she knew he used on all the girls on campus but her.

"Big brother?" she asked, then shoved back when her uniform tried to knock her over. "What are you doing here?"

"Watching you struggle," Touga said, perfectly casual and professionally posed at the same time. "I don't know why you put yourself through this."

"Put myself. . . ." Nanami's yellow uniform whipped its sleeves at her, the buttons at their ends smacking her across the face. The quick flash of pain surprised her, and she reeled back, only to take the uniform's shoulder in her chest as she dropped her guard.

"You don't have do to this, you know," Touga said as he walked toward her.

Nanami wrapped her arms around her uniform's top and squeezed. It deformed like any cloth would in her grip, though the legs continued to kick at her and the sleeves still tried to whip their buttons at her. "Do what?" she demanded.

"Fight with yourself."

"This isn't me, it's just a--" Nanami looked down to see that she had herself in a chokehold, another her who wore the other uniform and looked to be running out of breath. She felt a sudden pressure on her own throat, and began to gasp.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" Touga asked, his voice changing as he spoke.

As stars began to spin in her vision, Nanami looked over at him, and saw that his hair had turned black, his skin incredibly white. Yellow cat-eyes flashed at her as the thing that wasn't quite Touga smiled at her.

"Your choice."

Nanami let go of the other her, and the empty uniform collapsed in a heap. She bent over and coughed, clutching at her sore throat, blackness flickering all around her. The blackness grew stronger and deeper, and a low, muffled rumble came from somewhere behind her.

"You really shouldn't taunt me," the not-Touga said, and put a hand on Nanami's shoulder.

A feeling somehow familiar and deep and powerful and wrong swept through Nanami, and her face began to burn. Before she had a chance to say anything, the not-Touga shoved her shoulder, and sent her tumbling back onto her bed–

A bed that became the back seat of a glossy red convertible. Nanami struggled to catch her breath, felt the soft leather seat beneath her cheek, the cold wind sweeping through her hair. Once she recovered, she looked around.

She'd been on this road once before, with her brother and Akio, the dark-skinned man who'd been Ends of the World and also the chairman. She shuddered at the memory. She'd dueled again after that ride. But she remembered. . . .

Nanami saw Desire sitting on the car's hood, still wearing Touga's uniform, the top still open. As it caught her eye, Desire turned and pressed its chest against the windshield, a thin strip of pale flesh visible.

"I don't want you," Nanami snapped.

Desire threw its head back and laughed, the sound like Touga and Ends of the World and its own voice all at once. Nanami shivered. "So quick to deny," Desire said. "Did you even take a moment to consider what you'd be missing?"

Images flickered in the darkness at either side of the road. Nanami saw herself from the pictures, as she'd lived then, starting with herself as a child and then moving forward. She watched herself grow up over the space of a few minutes, all the dozens of lives she'd lived here at Ohtori.

All that time . . . and only once had she truly learned something, and only once had she wanted to move on. All that time, and she only now remembered it. A pink-haired girl had been involved then too.

"So what will it be?" Desire asked. It turned to fully face her, spreading its long legs to straddle the car's hood. The leer it gave her sent a drop of sweat down Nanami's neck, trailing down beneath her shirt's collar.

Nanami looked to the flashing images again, saw her embracing Touga, saw him embracing her as well. She looked away quickly. "That's not what I want. I . . . I remember it. But he's not who I thought he was. He's not . . . who I wanted him to be."

Nanami felt a great weight lift from her shoulders. A tear formed at the corner of one eye, and she wiped it away. How long had it taken for her to see that, to admit that to herself? And now. . . .

Desire gave her a curious look, as though its cat-eyes could peer into her thoughts. "Not everyone can do that," it said, somehow subdued despite its lascivious pose. "It's not easy to change what you want so easily."

"It wasn't easy," Nanami said, shaking her head. "I had to learn how to see him differently. And I don't think I was allowed to for a long time."

"Why," Desire said with a patronizing smile, "that's almost impressive."

"That was it," Nanami said, more to herself than Desire. "I had to surpass him. I had to surpass everything. That's why I wanted to fight again. And after Utena was gone, after that last duel, I forgot it all."

She raised her gaze to Desire, and gave it the look she'd practiced in the mirror, a cutting glare made to make its victim feel no larger than a bug. "I don't need to be like I used to be," she proclaimed. "I don't have to. I will surpass my brother. I don't even know where he is, or if you've got him already, or – or anything like that. But I'll do better than he ever did."

Nanami stood up on the back seat, and took hold of the headrests of both the front seats, then carefully moved forward. She pulled herself into the driver's seat, looked up at Desire, and pushed the gas pedal to the floor.

Desire leaned down toward her, putting the top of its body down over the windshield, and put its face close to her own. It licked its lips. "When this is over," Desire whispered, the scent of its breath intoxicating, "you'll be mine."

Then it disappeared, and Nanami sat on her bed in her bedroom, holding her yellow uniform before herself. The white rose was pinned to the uniform's pocket.

Nanami blinked in surprise, then lowered the uniform to her lap. She hadn't thought it would be so easy, and yet. . . .

She knew what she'd said. Now she had to live up to it. Some people would doubt her. She scoffed at them, even if they weren't here to see it. She would show them, all of them. Her life in her brother's shadow was over.

Nanami changed into her yellow uniform, then left the house behind her and returned to the tower.

* * *

Kara and Marie walked across campus, close together, without anyone paying them any attention. Kara couldn't help but look at people as they walked. She watched their expressions, checking their eyes for any sign that they realized that she and Marie were there.

Nothing.

From what she'd heard from the others, Kara guessed that they were all used to it; they'd been living here the whole time since Akio died, and things had gotten worse over the past year. After a while, things had started to repeat themselves, Ohtori started to fall apart around the edges . . . Miki had filled her in on a lot of it.

Before he got caught by Desire.

At least, Kara thought, Kozue had found the rose that had doomed Miki, or something like that, and she was willing to fight. Kara wouldn't have expected Kozue to be part of this, but it made sense. Kozue didn't want anyone messing with her brother, so Desire was now officially on her hit-list.

Kara chuckled to herself at the thought. She'd gotten past thinking of everyone here as anime characters; a day or so of knowing them again as people made all the difference in the world. Some part of her mind still wanted to say 'wow, you're real' at any given time, but she kept that quiet.

She could only imagine what anyone from the anime club would have thought about this. Not that she could tell them. They still didn't remember what had happened, when they'd all received letters from Ends of the World; they just thought she met Marie somewhere and they'd started dating. None of them seemed to understand how she and Marie had gotten so close so quickly.

Kara reached over and took Marie's hand, gave it a squeeze. Some things were worth keeping secret.

"So," Marie began, giving her a small smile, "are you ready for this?"

Kara thought for a moment. "I think I have to be," she said. "It's like you said, it's the only place that makes sense for you. Desire said we'd know where the roses were, they'd be where we thought they'd be, so . . . this has to be it."

"Then the next question is, will you take the rose?"

Kara looked over at Marie, suddenly frowning, and opened her mouth to say something. She stopped when Marie continued.

"Or will you let me take it?"

Kara let her breath out as she thought. That was unexpected. Of course, she'd assumed that she'd be the one dueling; Marie taking up a rose and a sword hadn't really occurred to her. Then again, it made sense, and it wasn't like she'd keep Marie from doing something she wanted to.

But at the same time . . . being here, seeing all of this and knowing what it would lead to, and with Dream's request that she play the prince again, it wasn't an easy question to answer.

Kara looked over at Marie, and gave her half a grin. "Tell you what. If we find a rose that's yours, you take it. We find mine, I take it. Maybe we'll get lucky and find both."

"That does make me wonder," Marie said. "How will we know whose rose it is?" She paused. "I can't quite see you wearing a pink rose, despite the obvious."

"Obvious?" Kara let go of Marie's hand, and tugged on a lock of the other girl's purple hair. "Says you. Whatever color your rose is, you better hope it doesn't clash." She grinned at Marie's expression.

Marie smiled a moment later. "Interesting. I've known you for over a year, or something like that, and this is the first time I've heard you worry about whether or not what someone was wearing would match."

Kara sighed. "It had to happen eventually. . . ."

The area they soon reached seemed as populous as any other, but as they drew close, they saw their final destination showed clear signs of neglect. The rose garden, once a well-maintained greenhouse filled with roses of all kinds and colors, now stood abandoned. The bushes inside stood dry and brittle, their leaves rattling in a slight breeze blowing in through several broken windows.

They stood and looked at it for a moment. Kara broke the silence. "I guess no one took care of it after you left." She glanced at Marie out of the corner of her eye, and wondered what the place meant to her.

In the series, it had always seemed like the rose garden truly was Anthy's cage, as Touga had said it was; as much as she'd claimed to like tending to the roses, Kara had always wondered if there was some kind of compulsion that made her go there. Maybe she'd only needed to be there when Akio made her go.

"You all right?" Kara asked after a quiet moment.

"I thought it'd call to me again," Marie said, just shy of a whisper. "It's . . . it was always like that. Even when I lived with you in the dorms, even when we lived in the tower. The roses . . . called to me." She sighed, and looked up at Kara. "They're quiet now."

"I'd hope so," Kara said, "they're dead." But she smiled. "Come on. Let's get this over with."

They walked toward the rose garden, hands clasped together.

The hinges had long since rusted over, and let out a harsh metallic shriek when Kara pulled open the door. They both winced, then walked inside. A cloying scent of decomposing roses swept over them like a fog, and Kara coughed, then held her free hand over her nose. Marie didn't seem bothered.

They circled around the small brick path, peering into the roses. Nothing lived among the dry and aphid-eaten plants. A rusted watering can lay at the edge of the path, fallen partway into the dirt and half-covered with old leaves and petals.

"Maybe I was wrong," Marie said once they'd circled most of the garden.

Kara nodded. "Maybe – there!"

Kara pulled Marie over, and pointed deep into one of the dead plants. Hidden among twisted, thorny branches, a single yellow rosebud stood, pointing toward the sky. The two girls looked at each other and nodded.

"It's yellow," Kara said. "So whose is it?"

"Yellow usually means friendship." Marie looked through the dirty glass, out across campus. "So maybe it's everyone's rose."

"Hmm. I don't think we can get everyone to wear one rose," Kara mused. She started to reach for the bud, then stopped. She reached with her other hand, the one still holding Marie's.

They both leaned in toward the rose bush, but the bud was too far away. Kara leaned farther, trying to pull Marie closer, awkward as it was. They couldn't reach the rose. After a few tries that left their hands scraped with thorns, they both pulled back and looked at each other.

"Now what?" Kara asked.

"I think I can get it." Marie knelt, and leaned down toward the bush. "I just need to reach--"

As Marie leaned, her foot slipped off of the brick path, and scraped through the covering of dead leaves and petals. As soon as her foot touched the dry dirt beneath, the ground collapsed, and Marie stumbled.

"Kara!" she cried.

The dirt opened wide around Marie, revealing a mess of worm-eaten roots. Kara grabbed Marie's hands and started to pull. Marie fell farther, as though the dirt pulled her down. Her hands started to slip from Kara's. With one last cry, Marie disappeared into the ground, and something flew up from where she had disappeared.

"Marie!" Kara yelled. "Dammit! Marie!"

There, in the cleared dirt where Marie's foot had scraped, lay a small silver ring. Kara picked it up, careful not to touch the dirt herself. The ring matched her own, with a rose seal made of translucent purple crystal.

Kara gasped as she remembered. Back in the Dreaming, as Dream had returned her own ring, Kara had seen Marie hold her hands behind her back. Marie must have been creating her own ring, one to match. Kara blinked away sudden, hot tears. No. This wasn't going to happen. No.

She clenched her fist around the ring, then threw back her head and yelled. "Desire! Get out here and give me back my girlfriend!"

A sudden rumble, and all the rose plants shivered, sending their dead leaves and petals flying into the air. The rumble came again, louder this time, and Kara braced herself. She knew that sound.

The infamous car burst through the cloud, heading straight for Kara. She tried to leap aside, but the car smacked into her, sending her flying. She tumbled through the air, landed on her ass in the back seat, and suddenly the car was driving down an endless road through purple-tinged blackness.

Kara got herself straightened out, brushed dead rose parts from her clothes, and looked to the front seat with a scowl. "You are such a drama queen."

Desire sat in the reclined driver's seat, its hands nowhere near the wheel. "The way you called me, I couldn't help but answer in kind."

"Whatever," Kara said with a snort. She folded her arms over her chest and, as subtly as she could, slipped Marie's ring onto her own pinky finger. "Give me back Marie and let me out. We got the rose, so--"

"Not quite." Desire's smirk was infuriating. "You found the rose. But neither of you managed to take it. It's still there, so you're no closer to winning this game . . . or even getting to play in the next round."

"Details," Kara muttered. "And next round? How long do you expect this to go on? I know I'm not the only one who found a rose."

"True enough, but the others managed to get a hold of theirs." Desire laughed, no small hint of mockery to it. "Some of them."

Kara leaned back and thought, but kept scowling at Desire just in case. Nanami had come back all panicked about Tsuwabuki, so he was probably gone. And Kozue said that Miki was gone too. And she hadn't seen Saionji, Keiko, or Kanae for a while. How many of them had fallen? How many of them were even left?

"So," Kara said awkwardly, "who's good so far?"

Desire's tongue flicked across its upper lip. "Who's good," it asked, "or who hasn't lost?" It leered at the look Kara gave it. "One of you will never learn, another will never change. And two of you who are, as you say, good, were recently locked in a passionate embrace."

Kara tried to picture the various combinations of the people she knew hadn't fallen yet, and started to laugh. It seemed ridiculous. "Sounds like fanfic," she said, and laughed again.

"But enough about them." Desire reclined the seat all the way and turned over, folded its arms beneath its chin, and looked Kara in the eye. "Tell me what you want. I want to hear you say it."

Kara felt the shivers of old memories ripple through her mind. She remembered suddenly being brought to the chamber with Morpheus and Desire, and the overwhelming sense of need that the being before her made her feel. There was so little of that now. Was it because she'd resisted Desire once? Or was it that she didn't want anything Desire could offer? There was no way to know, but one way to find out.

She narrowed her eyes. "Kill Ohtori. Make it so Marie and I don't have to worry about this place ever again. Give me back Marie and let us both go home. We're done here." She paused. Desire's expression didn't change. "That's what I want. Your deal."

"You seem so fixated on her," Desire said. Kara wondered if it cared about anything else she'd said. "Why?"

"Shouldn't you know?" Kara snorted. "You're Desire, you should understand why I want to be with her." She grinned despite herself. "We've kind of been through a lot together."

"But she's so. . . ." Desire seemed to be searching for a word, but Kara had a feeling it knew exactly what it wanted to say. "Limited. I could propose an alternative." A long, slow blink.

Kara realized what Desire was suggesting. "What? You?" She laughed out loud, letting her head fall back. How long had it been since she'd had that good of a laugh? "You're joking. You've got to be. You think I'd take you over her?" Kara cackled. "You can't even figure out if you're a girl or a boy."

"What I am is up to me." Desire smiled, razor-edged. When it spoke again, though, its voice held no mirth at all. "I'm growing tired of this game, Kara; it's time to end it. What's your answer?"

Kara held up her hand, showing Desire her ring finger and the rose there. "My answer's right here. All I need to duel is a ring."

Desire scowled, and disappeared, and suddenly the car was tearing across Ohtori campus, heading at full speed right for a group of students who didn't even notice it was there.

Kara screamed and leaped for the steering wheel. Too late. The car plowed into dozens of students and kept going, sending bodies flying in its wake, leaving behind screams of agony. The car continued toward the center of campus with Kara frantically trying to stop it. When the tower was in full view, the car accelerated again, and Kara dove under the seat.

This would not be a good way to die.

The impact crushed the car all around her, sending Kara bouncing around within the plush leather wreckage. When everything settled, she crawled out, then slowly got to her feet. She was covered with bruises, but otherwise unhurt.

"Damn immortal drama queen whatever-the-hell-you-are," Kara muttered, then shook herself, trying to pull herself together.

Another look at the car, and Kara saw that the engine lay exposed. There among the grey steel and dripping fluids lay a tiny spot of yellow. She jammed her hand into the engine and yanked the rose free.

Her hand and arm bled freely from the wounds from dozens of thorns. But the yellow rose was hers.

* * *

Kara took the elevator up to the room at the top of the tower, and walked quickly over to the couches. She saw Juri standing there, as well as the back of Nanami's head. Juri wore a black rose pinned to her uniform top, and she frowned at Kara as the other woman hurried over.

"Marie's gone," Juri said, unshakable as always.

"Desire got her," Kara said quickly, then caught her breath. "It stole her. But I got the rose." She gestured to her shirt. "We have to go. I don't care where the last rose is, we're taking this to Desire. Now."

Kara looked down at the couches. Nanami sat on one, back in her yellow uniform, a white rose pinned to her chest. There was a determination in her eyes Kara hadn't seen before – not since the second time Nanami dueled. Somehow, it was good to see it back. Nanami looked up at her, then stood.

"Good," Nanami said. "Let's go."

Juri nodded, then looked at the other couch. "Kozue?"

Kara blinked. She hadn't seen Kozue there, but considering the look on Kozue's face, that was probably for the better. Kozue looked like she was ready to tear down the entire campus, brick by brick, with her bare hands if she had to.

Kozue stood, then walked over to stand between Juri and Nanami. "You'll do this, even with only the four of us?"

"It has Marie," Kara said. Did she really need to explain anything else?

"Then we go," Kozue said.

Kara nodded. "Damn right. Let's go revolutionize a world."


	8. Chapter 7: Women of the Future

﻿A Duel for All the World: Chapter Seven – Women of the Future Hold the Big Revelations

The car sped on through the endless night, two passengers riding in its front seats.

Touga leaned back, letting the otherworldly wind whip through his hair, exulting in the sensation of the long drive, of the eternal road. The game was nearly over. Everything was as his master had promised. And in time, he would fight in the final duels, and Ohtori would become his.

He reached up and stroked the petals of the pink rose he wore on his chest. Yes. The final duels couldn't come soon enough.

Touga glanced over at Desire, and swallowed hard. Looking at it always made his mouth go dry, filled him with anticipation. He remembered when Desire had come to him, long before the girl who was once Utena had shown her face. Desire promised him that the world would change soon, that Ohtori would be in need of a new master, and had asked him, did he like the sound of that?

To such a question, there was only ever one answer.

Desire glanced over at him, its yellow eyes glistening. "I know what you're thinking," it said.

Touga let out a deep chuckle. "Am I that transparent?"

"It's not hard to tell," Desire said. "The game's nearly over. They've found four of the roses, and that girl you treasure so dearly isn't patient enough to find the last rose. She'll want to challenge me as soon as she can."

Touga calmed his cravings long enough to consider this. Desire knew all that happened; that came as no surprise. But it must know Kara well for it to be able to predict her behavior so  
easily. "And why is that?" he asked, trying to hide his interest.

"Because I took what she wants most."

"Anthy," Touga said, then corrected himself. "Marie. You took Marie from her?"

"She rejected me, so that's all she deserves," Desire said, its expression hardening around its eyes. "There's worse I could do to her. I don't think she realizes how kind I'm being. Do  
you?"

Having known nothing of the kind of kindness Desire spoke of, nor any knowledge of what it would consider 'worse', Touga only nodded. "But you know she's going to come for you," he said. "Even without my rose."

"You do remember her," Desire said. It took its hands off the wheel and ran them through its hair, then reclined the seat and kicked its feet up on the dashboard. "She's headstrong, impatient, and full of herself. She'll fight again."

Touga frowned. "That doesn't sound like the girl I knew. Not all of that. I don't remember her being impatient, among other things."

Desire reached out and knuckled his chin, almost playful. Its touch sent fire racing across Touga's skin, and his breath caught in his throat. "Oh, but she's changed, dear boy. She's had  
an entire new life to find herself. Like you."

"I wouldn't call this a new life," Touga said. He leaned back in his own seat again, trying to convince his heart to stop beating so fast. "More like the same life, over and over, with small  
variations."

Variations indeed. He remembered times when he'd called the Rose Bride his own, and times when he'd never bothered to fight for her, seeing the whole thing as pointless and a distraction from what was truly important. Though now, riding in the car with Desire with the prospect of Ohtori becoming his looming before him, he started to wonder what else he ever could have considered important.

But yes. Ohtori would be his. And once he rebuilt the world the way he wanted it, things would change. Then, he could have what he truly wanted.

Want. He looked over to see Desire staring at him, something between mischief and malice glimmering in its eyes.

"You'll win the duels, won't you?" Desire asked. A seemingly innocent question, but Touga heard the layers of doubt and implication behind its words.

He countered with a charming smile, the kind he'd used to melt away others' fears and inhibitions. He had few enough of those himself. "Do you doubt me?" he asked. "You've seen previous duels."

"But those were previous duels," Desire said. It reached forward and slowly dragged a nail across his jawline, leaving a cold, burning sensation behind. "This is the last one, truly the last one. Can you win when it's all of Ohtori at stake?"

"The higher the stakes, the easier it is to win." Touga waited until Desire's fingers reached his chin, then flicked out his tongue and licked one of its fingertips. "I won't lose track of what I'm fighting for just because the stakes are high. The others . . . they'll be thinking about what they have to win, not what they have to do to win."

"And when Ohtori is yours," Desire said, its voice falling to a whisper that Touga could scarcely hear over the throb of the engine, "what will you do?"

What would he do? A simple enough question, at least it seemed. Make Ohtori his own. Learn how Ends of the World had played with the world, and learn how to make it work the way he wanted to. See what happened when he changed things, see what the students did when their world changed and they either did or didn't remember the way things used to be. Make sure they knew of him only as the student council president, and let them choose how to react to him – he'd let them have that much freedom.

The ones who pleased him, he would please in return. The others . . . that remained to be  
seen. But he would learn all that he could do, and try everything, one curiosity at a time.

"I will rule," Touga said quietly.

"Be the prince in the tower?" Desire said, then laughed again. Its apparent mirth never reached its eyes.

"Enough of a prince," Touga said, though he didn't react when Desire reached for him again. Something about its laugh. . . .

"And doesn't a prince need a princess?" Desire continued. It dragged a nail down his neck to his chest, and murmured when Touga's back arched in response. "You could have her back. Atop Ohtori, you could create anyone you wanted. You could bring back Utena the way you remember her."

Touga fought to remember how to breathe and didn't reply.

"She's the only girl you ever truly felt something for, isn't she?" Desire asked. His shirt snapped open, and Desire traced its nails down to his chest.

"She is," Touga gasped. It wasn't something he thought of often. But he couldn't deny it.

"And you must be disappointed with who she's become."

It wasn't a question, but Touga nodded; he couldn't help himself. Utena had changed, and while he saw some of the qualities that had drawn him to her present in Kara, this new girl was clearly not the same. She'd hardly looked twice at him.

If only for that, she was definitely not his princess.

"That's what you want, isn't it?" Desire whispered, its voice arched and somehow scratchy around the edges.

"Yes," Touga gasped, and realized what he'd done.

Mockery flashed in Desire's catlike eyes, and it snatched the pink rose from his chest. "Then you'll have her forever," it said. "Maybe."

Touga disappeared without even a scream.

Desire sat up, and slid the pink rose's thorned stem into its breast pocket. At the rose's center, a yellow eye that matched its own stared back. Desire took the wheel again, and pressed the accelerator down as far as it could go.

Back to Ohtori. There was still a duel to fight.  


* * *

Why the tower had an armory, Kara wasn't sure, but somehow it fit.

She walked into a room with swords hanging from every wall, every style she could have imagined and more than a few she'd never thought of. Straight blades, wavy blades, straight blades that curved dramatically halfway down their length, blades with colored ripples in them and blades with edges on one side or both, swords with basket hilts or bar-shaped hilts or no hilts at all, blades of wood and steel and other metals she didn't have names for.

It fit, with all the swordfighting that had happened here at the school. But she hadn't expected it. What she had expected was who she found here.

"Juri," Kara said as she walked up. The other woman was looking through the swords, sometimes taking one down from the wall or off of one of the standing racks, testing its weight and swing and whatever other things she would know about as a master fencer. Kara watched Juri as she approached, and realized she didn't know a thing about how to pick a sword other than getting one that didn't weigh too much.

Juri turned and looked at her, her expression cool. "Kara." She put the sword she held back onto one of the racks.

Kara took a deep breath, then let it out all at once. "Did you find one that works for you?" she asked, awkward.

"Not yet." Juri selected another sword, swung it a few times, then put it back. "I don't think Nanami or Kozue have been in here either."

"Probably not." Kara leaned against the wall, careful not to accidentally skewer herself, and watched Juri for a moment. "I have to say . . . I'm glad you're with us."

Juri paused, but didn't look at her. "Why?"

"Because if we have to duel some weird androgynous being from somewhere else, I'm glad you're on our side," Kara said, trying not to laugh. "I mean, I remember dueling you. Even if you don't really remember dueling me."

Juri turned halfway and looked at Kara. "I remember well enough. You're still Utena, whether you see it or not."

"I do see it, sometimes, but thanks," Kara said with a small smile. "You know what, though? I never really beat you."

Juri frowned at her, picked up another sword, but didn't swing it. "What do you mean? We fought twice. I never had the Rose Bride when you were there."

When she was there? So Juri had actually won Anthy at some point? Kara filed that away for thinking about later; it'd be too distracting now. Especially because picturing Juri and Marie together kind of freaked her out. "That's not what I mean," she said. "First time I fought you, you had me, until the Sword of Dios came down and hit your rose." She paused, but Juri didn't say anything. "Second time--"

"I remember the second time." Juri's tone made it clear that it wasn't open for discussion. "Why are you bringing this up now?"

Kara smiled. "Because as soon as Desire started talking about playing a game for Ohtori, I knew that you'd make it to the end. You're strong like that. I didn't want to see you fall."

Juri said nothing, but Kara saw her touch the black rose she wore. She tested a few more swords, then turned around with one similar to the one she'd used during the series; Kara remembered the wide hilt and blade, bigger than the flimsy fencing swords.

"Thank you," Juri said. She walked toward Kara, but stopped with a rack standing between the two of them. "I had no intention of falling. Desire . . . it seems to think only one way, and think that everyone's going to want the same thing." She picked up a sword from the rack, swung it a few times, then nodded. "And that's why it's going to lose."

Juri threw the new sword she held to Kara, hilt-first. Kara snatched it out of the air and looked at it. The blade was thin and light, the grip fit her hand, and it had one of those dome hilts that would protect her hand. A rose was engraved across the dome.

Kara snapped a grin at Juri. "Thanks. This'll work."

Juri nodded. "It will. When's the last time you fought?"

"More than a year ago," Kara said, shaking her head, "and never against anyone who really knew how. Do you want to practice?"

"Do we really have time for that?"

Juri and Kara both turned at the sound of another voice, and saw Nanami and Kozue standing at the armory's open doorway. Nanami held a sword much like the one she'd used before, complete with a dagger stuck through her belt. Kozue's sword looked almost exactly like Miki's, and she held it in a backhand grip, as though ready to swing it around and hurt someone as much as she could.

Nanami had spoken, and she walked into the room. "We're ready to go. Why aren't you?"

Kara shrugged, and held up her sword. "We're supposed to be dueling. I needed a sword."

"Why do you think you'll need one?" Kozue asked from the doorway.

Kara looked at her, about to tell her off, then she saw the look in Kozue's eyes. The anger there hadn't gone away. Kara bit back her comment, then said, "I don't think the Sword of Dios will make an appearance today." She looked at Juri. "Ready?"

Juri nodded. The four of them headed for the elevator.

They walked outside to a cold and empty campus, thousands of stars floating overhead in the pitch black sky. Kara watched for a moment. The stars were moving, sweeping past campus as though pushed by a gentle wind.

"I didn't think it would be night," Juri said, also looking up at the sky.

"I don't know," Kara said. "Time's been strange since I got here. I don't even know how many days it's been." She shrugged. "Let's go."

The four of them began their walk across campus, toward the dueling forest. As they got closer, Kara looked up at the stars again. Their pattern had changed . . . they weren't just moving overhead, they were circling around something. She looked ahead. All the stars were swirling in a slow, lazy spiral, with the sky over the forest at its center.

Kara muttered under her breath. Looked like she was right about Desire – it really was a drama queen.

They soon reached the forest, and walked down the stone path with pools to either side. Kara checked to see if Saionji was laying there half-drowned, but no luck. She managed not to chuckle at the thought. They walked to the gate, and Kara looked at all of them before approaching.

"You ready for this?" she asked.

"Do it," Kozue said. The others nodded.

Kara reached out and put her hand around the gate's handle. A single drop of water splashed onto her ring, cold against her hand. More water rushed from above the pools, and the stone shifted, and a giant rose formed above the gate, which slid open.

She looked down the new path, and saw the spiraling stairway leading up into foggy darkness. Without a word, the four of them began the climb.

The mist either thinned or grew more grey as they headed upward; Kara wasn't entirely sure. She remembered the arena at the end of the series, at the end of the Duel Called Revolution; things had gone so grey then, before they went so very wrong. She glanced at the others as they walked. Juri was focused, as Kara expected, and she couldn't read Nanami at all. Kozue still seemed so angry.

The stairs spiraled up, and up, and up. Kara remembered climbing them, over and over again as Utena, and how she'd never been able to wonder why she could climb them and not get tired, or how the arena could stay up at the top of them, or even how any of this could fit inside the dueling forest. She wondered if the others were thinking about the same things, and shook her head. No, probably not.

She also had better things to think about. Marie was up there, somewhere; she had to be. Desire had said that its game would end with duels among those who had the new roses, with the winner gaining Ohtori. Therefore, Desire had to show up when they went to the arena, didn't it? She remembered being in the Dreaming and someone saying that there were rules that they all followed, rules that even Morpheus had to follow even though he'd created the Dreaming and everything in it.

If Desire was Morpheus's sibling, now Dream's sibling, then it should play the same kind of way, and be bound by the rules it set up for itself. Then again, if Desire really was all about wanting, then it could change the rules if it wanted.

Kara hid a shudder at the thought, and continued to climb.

"It's been a long time since I did this," Juri said, almost offhandedly. She didn't sound winded at all.

Kara looked over at her. "You've done this?" She knew she'd dueled Juri, but hadn't really thought about the duel games she hadn't been around for.

"We've all done this," Kozue said. "We've all dueled, we've all had the Rose Bride, though not always for long. We've all been part of the student council."

"One life or another," Juri said with a nod.

Kara glanced at Nanami, who also nodded. "That's strange to think about," she said, partly to herself. "I only knew you all for . . . that one time. But you've been doing this for a lot longer than that."

"Much longer." Kozue almost smiled.

"It doesn't matter now," Nanami said, standing up straighter and taking a step faster than the others. "This will be the last time."

The stair spiral widened, and soon they reached the arena. When they entered, the gate closed itself behind them and disappeared into the stone, leaving an unbroken castle wall around the entire place. The rose inlay, red on white, seemed unchanged from before. As they walked toward the center, the white stone slowly changed to black, and the red darkened, becoming the color of blood.

Then, a white staircase appeared upon the arena floor, glowing faintly with its own light. A giant white stone heart appeared behind it. There came the sound of footsteps, hard and even, and a moment later, two white boots appeared at the top of the staircase.

Kara recognized the moment. She'd been here before – once when she was Utena, when Morpheus had brought her back to Ohtori and Akio had attempted to make her his own again, and once a year ago, when she and Marie had gone to the arena in Banner Hall to fight the final duel. Twice she'd seen the boots atop the staircase, and twice she'd fled.

Not this time. Kara tightened her grip on her sword. She would not run.

Kara held her sword before herself. Juri, Nanami, and Kozue stood in a line with her, all with swords at the ready. The boots continued down the stairs, revealing a pair of fitted white pants, further revealing a familiar coat, until Desire stood before them once more, clad in Ends of the World's uniform, its hair long and silky black.

"Well, well, well," Desire said as it reached the bottom stare, its gait smooth and flowing. "So you've come to fight me. How cute."

"I want Marie back," Kara spat.

Desire flashed her a razor-edged smile. "It's good to want things." It raised its hand to its chest for a moment, then lowered it. A pink rose was now on its coat pocket. It drew a long, curved sword from nowhere.

"The fifth rose," Juri said, frowning. "Who found it?"

"No one found it," Desire said, and turned its slit-eyed gaze on Nanami. "I gave it to your brother some time ago."

Nanami scowled, but she didn't look surprised. "So he's been your toy all this time?"

Desire's smile never left its face, and it looked like it wanted to laugh. "Everyone here is my toy now," it said. "Everyone. Akio left me them all when he died." It pointed at Kara. "Killed by this one. Such a foolish man."

"He stole my girlfriend," Kara said, then cracked a smile right back at Desire. "And you did the same thing."

"She was Akio's once, therefore she was mine once," Desire said with a fluid shrug. "She will be again. Or maybe not. She's not that interesting. You, my dear, are a completely different story." It paused. "You all are. Things don't have to end like this. We can still make a deal."

"I know how your deals end," Kozue said. She raised her sword. "Give me back my brother."

All mirth disappeared from Desire's face. "Do you really want everyone back so badly?" It looked at Juri. "Except you. And I'm not inclined to give you what you want. Pity." It spun its sword in a circle, trailing flickering red sparks, and the arena changed.

The blood-red stone that formed the rose contracted in upon itself, coming together and shrinking, lifting and rising, until a red stone rose sculpture stood at the center of the arena. The stone bore a faint glow, and that glow dimmed and brightened, accompanied by a faint beating sound. A black stone coffin rose from the arena just in front of the rose, with a golden emblem of the Sword of Dios emblazoned on its lid.

"To get them back," Desire said, "destroy the rose. Break the Heart of the Revolution. Kill everyone here. Trigger the Absolute Destiny Apocalypse, and destroy the world." It was quiet for a moment, as though taking a breath. "Can you do that?"

Kara froze. This wasn't why Dream had sent her here. But if this was what it took, to remove Desire's influence from Ohtori. . . . Dream had wanted her to set them all free. If there was no other way, then this was it. She stepped forward and raised her sword before herself.

"I have to do this," Kara said. She glanced at the others. "Are you with me?"

Juri stepped forward, and said simply, "Yes."

Nanami looked at both Kara and Juri; Kara saw the doubt in her eyes. That figured, Kara thought. Nanami had strength in her, but she'd never been great at actually making decisions. Kara glanced over at Kozue just in time to see her step forward and stand at Juri's side. She smirked. That solved that.

Maybe, then, it would only take three. Kara looked at Desire. "It looks like we can." A moment later, Nanami came to stand beside her.

Desire's mocking laughter echoed across the arena. All around them, the mist cleared, revealing thousands of stars, glimmering in purple-tinged blackness. "So you'd destroy a world," it said. "And yet . . . none of you have the proper sword for such a job."

A grinding sound echoed across the arena as the coffin's lid began to slide open. Kara caught sight of what lay within the coffin, gasped, and ran toward it.

"Marie!"

When the coffin's lid opened all the way, Marie became fully visible, laying with her eyes closed and her hands clasped at her waist and the blade of the Sword of Dios between her hands and its point piercing her heart. Kara skidded to a halt and fell to her knees beside the coffin. The others joined her a moment later.

Fighting to breathe past the lump in her throat, Kara reached for Marie, then stopped. She looked closely. The wound was bloodless, but Marie wasn't breathing. It was just like when she'd pulled the sword from Anthy – nothing there, no wound, just a burst of light and then the sword from nowhere.

If it came from nowhere, then wouldn't it go back into nowhere?

Kara put her hands over Marie's, wrapping their fingers around the sword. Marie's skin was cold. She remembered what she'd learned in the Dreaming. Dios was only Akio playing at being a prince. He'd never actually been. And all those times the supposed power of Dios had come to her during the duels? Just Akio making sure his chosen girl won, so that she would believe herself to be a prince, all the better to make her fall into being his princess.

No more.

She was the prince on her own terms now. And she would make this up as she went along. She placed her hands on the sword's hilt. "Power of Dios that never existed," Kara called out, "heed the one who used to believe in you!"

Kara pulled. An instant later, she felt Marie's hands grow warm, watched them tighten on the sword and pull along with her. The sword came loose, flashing and reflecting light that wasn't there, and a single blue spark ran down from the tip to the hilt as they both raised it into the air.

Marie gasped, and her eyes opened wide. The coffin crumbled around her, and the black stone slowly faded into the arena floor. Kara helped her to her feet, both of them still holding the sword.

Kara pulled Marie close. "You all right? It didn't – are you okay?"

"I'll be fine," Marie said, breathing hard. She shuddered, then leaned against Kara. "There was just . . . nothing," she whispered.. "Thank you for coming for me."

Kara smiled. "Did you think I'd do anything else?"

Marie gave her a knowing smile. "Still the prince, one way or another," she said, then stood on her toes and kissed Kara on both cheeks. "Let's end this."

Kara kissed her cheeks in return. They looked toward Desire. "You were saying?" Kara said.

Desire seemed unmoved and unsurprised by what it witnessed. Kara started to wonder if this was just another part of Desire's game, or if everything was just a game to it; if it had started this entire thing just to see what they would do. It did seem to like playing with peoples' lives. . . .

"I was saying you lacked the proper sword. And I still say that you lack the will to destroy an entire world." It gestured at the rose, and the petals shifted and began to gleam, then grew faceted like a jewel. "Can you end all those lives?"

Hundreds of faces appeared in the facets of the rose. Kara and the others looked, recognizing most if not all of them. All the students of Ohtori, all the friends they'd had, everyone they'd ever known. Teachers they'd loved or loathed, classmates they'd seen every day and never once spoken to, every single person that made Ohtori what it was.

They were all inside.

Kozue reached out and rested her hand against a large petal. "Miki," she whispered. The facet showed him walking with Anthy on his arm, a smile on his face. Kozue's expression softened for the first time since Miki had disappeared, then she looked to the other duelists.

"He's still screaming," Kozue said.

Kara nodded, then looked at Juri and Nanami. "What about you two?"

Nanami walked to the rose, and looked deep within it, to the smaller petals near its dark center. She stood there for a long moment, then turned her back on it. "I'm done with this place," she said.

Juri just gave Kara a sad smile, and motioned to her black rose. "You don't even have to ask."

"But what about you?" Kozue asked.

Marie and Kara looked at each other. "I don't think we have to ask either," Marie said. "I wish we'd done this a long time ago."

"You really didn't play this right, you know that?" Kara asked Desire. "Before you gave us a chance like this, you should have made sure that we wouldn't actually do it – that you weren't giving us what we wanted."

Desire only smiled.

Kara stepped forward, raised the Sword of Dios, and pressed the tip into the center of the rose. The blade slid, skidding across the faceted stone, finally coming to a stop somewhere deep within. A faint blue gleam ran up the sword, reflecting violet in all the facets of the rose.

Nanami rested her hand on the end of the sword. "If a chick cannot hatch from its egg, it will die without being born."

"We are the chick," Juri said. She stepped forward and put her hand over Nanami's. "The world is our egg."

"If we cannot smash the world's shell, we will die without being born." Kozue placed her hand over Juri's, gave it a small squeeze.

Marie put her hand atop Kozue's. She raised her eyes and looked at Kara. "Smash the world's shell."

Kara put her hand over everyone's. They all stood together, hands upon the sword. Kara took a deep breath. She looked at Desire one last time. "For the revolution of the world."

They pushed, and the rose shattered, and the world fell to pieces around them.


	9. Epilogue: Endgame and Awakening

A Duel for All the World: Epilogue – Endgame and Awakening

The world broke, and the arena collapsed; every facet of the rose splintered into thousands of tiny pieces that sparkled and spun into the emptiness, and the Sword of Dios glowed glimmering gold and faded away.

There, floating in the purple-black nothing, Kara found herself, and all the others, all the students of Ohtori, all the people she'd once called friends, all the duelists, all those who'd been captured by Desire.

No one said a word.

In the center of nothing, two faint white specks appeared, and grew larger, as though approaching from a great distance. As they grew closer, they took on humanoid shapes. One was a man clad entirely in white, black rings surrounding eyes equally black, a faceted green gem hanging from a silver chain around his neck. He wore a calm expression, as though very little in the universe could surprise or faze him.

The other was a young black-haired woman clad in black pants and a strap-topped black shirt, her skin perfectly pale, heavy black lines around both her eyes, a small spiral descending from the lines around her right eye. A silver ankh hung from a cord around her neck, and her smile was casual and friendly, as though she saw all the world as old friends she was so very glad to meet again.

The floating figures who had once been students at Ohtori slowly moved toward the newcomers, drawn by a will not their own. When everyone was close, the woman spoke.

"And that, as they say, is that." She looked over at the pale man. "Good timing on this one, little brother. Glad you could come along."

Kara pulled herself together, slowly realizing what had happened and who now floated before her. "Dream?" she asked. "Did I mess that up?"

"Nothing of the sort, I assure you," Dream said. "My sister here merely saw that she would be needed."

Marie floated next to Kara and took her hand. "I don't think it worked as you thought it would, my lord."

He shook his head. "Not all things do." He looked off to one side, as though seeing something the others could not. "I suppose it came as a surprise to you as well, Desire?"

Desire appeared next to him, still in the uniform of Ends of the World. It looked rather amused. "In a way," it said. "But it was fun." It glanced at Kara, and ran the tip of its tongue across its upper lip. "My offer still stands, if you ever change your mind."

Kara shook her head. "That'll never happen, Desire." She put an arm around Marie and pulled her close. "I just want Marie."

Desire only smiled. "'Never' is a word for the foolish." Then it was gone.

"It never really learns, does it?" the black-haired woman asked, and laughed, and Dream shook his head. "And now--"

"Hey, wait," Kara said. She floated closer to the woman, Marie beside her. "Do I know you? You seem really familiar."

The woman smiled at her. "I know you, Katherine. You too, Marie. I'm Death."

Kara leaned back, and tried to float away or something like that. She couldn't. All around her, everyone was floating slowly closer, until Kara could hardly see the blackness between them. Everyone looked surprised but calm, as though this was something that would be explained in time. Several of the other duelists, Juri and Miki among them, floated closer to Kara, gathering among those they knew.

"You're Death," Kara said slowly. She turned and glared at Dream. "You said we'd get to go home when we were done, not--"

"And so you will," Dream said. "You've done what I asked of you." He gave Kara a kind smile. "My sister is not here for either of you. She's here for almost everyone else."

"Almost?" Marie asked. "I'm sorry, my lord, but we never found out who your missing dream was."

"She is here." Dream held out his hand, and a girl floated out of the crowd, slowly moving toward him. "You," he said to the maroon-haired girl, "have been away far too long, and I'm sure you've caused no end of trouble."

"Shiori?" Juri whispered. "Shiori's a dream? How. . . ?"

"A dream of cruel innocence," Dream said. He reached out his hand, and when he touched Shiori, she shimmered and collapsed into a small, glowing cloud, leaving only the afterimage of a childlike, knowing smile. "I am sorry for whatever harm she's caused you. She escaped some time ago, and I did not know she was gone until Akio was slain."

Juri put a hand over her heart and bowed her head, and was quiet for a moment. Then, she turned to Death and asked, "What happens now?"

Miki floated forward. Redness rimmed his eyes, and when he spoke, he sounded like he'd been crying for a long, long time. "Are we dead?"

"Sort of," Death said. "Your world really shouldn't exist anymore, I'm just holding it here for now so I can collect everyone." She still smiled, and somehow, that made what she said sound all right. "But it's time for you to move on. All of you."

"But what happens to us?" Juri asked, frowning. "What happens when we die?"

Death said, "Now's when you find out," and opened her arms.

One by one, the students came to her, and one by one, she touched them and they disappeared. Not a single one looked back. When it was done, only four remained in the blackness – Death and her brother Dream, and Kara and Marie.

"You ready to send them home?" Death asked.

Dream nodded. "I'm sure you two are ready to leave."

Kara squeezed Marie's hand. "We are."

"It was good to see you again," Marie said, and bowed her head to Dream.

"It was." Dream held out his hand, and touched their clasped hands, and they disappeared. He nodded to Death, and disappeared as well.

With something less than a gesture and something more than a thought, Death closed the world behind her, and Ohtori was no more.

* * *

Kara awoke to the first few rays of sunlight peeking in through her window. She muttered, stretched, and felt Marie curled up next to her. The wavy-haired girl stirred and opened her green eyes, then smiled at Kara.

Kara pulled her close, squeezed her tight, as though making sure she was real. "Hell of a dream," she said, then grinned.

"It wasn't a dream," Marie said. She looked toward the window, toward the sunrise. "But it's over. We never have to go back, never have to worry that Ohtori's going to come back to haunt us." She slowly sat up, and turned to face the morning light.

Kara sat up and draped her arms around Marie. "Yeah," she said, then took a deep breath just so she could let it out in a relieved sigh. "It's over."

"That part is," Marie said. "We still have our lives ahead of us." She clasped her hands over her lover's. "Good morning, Katherine."

The End.

* * *

Author's Note

Kara has it right: it's over.

At the time of this posting, I've been living with this story for nearly a year. It was a joy to write, and I have to admit I enjoyed re-watching and re-reading to make sure I got everything right; definitely some of the best 'research' I've ever done. Though I have to recommend against watching the Utena movie and then staying up late reading "Endless Nights" to finish everything off. It tends to mess with your head.

I think that one of the great challenges of any fanfiction is trying to make the story seem like it could actually happen, not only following the rules that canon sets out but writing the story in such a way that it mimics the original work. Writing fanfic in this way is something I've always tried to do. This is even more difficult when the original work is something that relies on visuals to make it what it is. I knew I had a challenge ahead of me when I started this series, but I'd like to think it went pretty well. Gods know that trying to combine the work of Gaiman and Ikuhara sounds intimidating all on its own, let alone trying to write the story in a way that evokes the amazing art from both series. Oi.

As always, I'd like to thank you for reading this, whoever you are. Long works of fanfiction are far less common than short ones, Utena and Sandman don't seem to be particularly active fandoms anymore (not that I've done much searching to see if they are or not), and it's not easy to get into a crossover if you only know one of the series. I know that this last part has received fewer hits than the previous two parts; no real surprise considering the length of "By the Rose" and that this part features non-canon characters. In the end, though, I told the story the way I saw it, and that's what matters most to me. Many thanks to those who reviewed and let me know what you thought of the story.

Anyway. This is, indeed, the last we will see of Kara and Marie. My part in the telling of their story is done. What might happen next to them, I truly can't say; I'd like to think they'll stay in love and grow old together and all that, but it's hard to know. The real world can be stranger and harsher than any fiction, and happy endings are rare. But I think the past they share, all that they've done to be together, will keep them together.

Thank you and goodnight.

--Moose


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